


Tempus

by whoscarol



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Inspired by Stranger Things (TV 2016), M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 46
Words: 148,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22198360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoscarol/pseuds/whoscarol
Summary: Physics researcher Mike Wheeler has to deal with old and new fears while trying to protect his ex-girlfriend and old friend Jane Hopper from what he found in the parallel world that changed their lives years ago.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Will Byers/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 105





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This my first time ever writing a story that I really want to finish. This plot has been on my mind since I finished Stranger Things 3 and I am a sucker for an alternate universe, parallel worlds and all. Also, I got really inspired by the movie Coherence (2013). 
> 
> English is not my mother language and I learned all by myself, so I apologize for eventual mistakes.
> 
> All feedbacks are welcome. Thanks and wish me luck!!

****

**December 15, 2008 - Hawkins, Indiana**

I go through the gooey hole of the wall as I carry his heavy body, breathing deep in the oxygen from the masks we've brought. We brought it.

Lucas, beside me, with his weapon in hand, ready to shoot anyone who discovers us here. My best friend didn't hesitate to help me, no matter how suicidal is what we are doing now.  
  
Kali, to my surprise, got into this mess I created. Even if I hate her, I need to be grateful for her gift right now. Thanks to her, everyone here thinks they're on another boring night at the Hawkins National Laboratory. That is what they see.

We ran together toward the nearest lab exit, taking quick breaks in some cameraless rooms - we mapped the lab - to resume our escape so Kali can have a break.

10 minutes later, we are in the parking lot. I push his body into our car while I hear Kali shout something at me, but I just answer - yell - to start the car. I hear the sound of the engine and realize that Lucas is already in charge of the steering wheel and ready to get us out of here. I get in the car and reposition his oxygen mask as I look into his face and think, what am I going to do with him?

"We need to get to the hospital as soon as possible," I say, still breathing hard. "Did someone talk to Max? She's waiting for us, right?"

"Yes, I spoke to her earlier and she's waiting for us," says Kali, while wiping the blood from his nose with the sleeve of his shirt "didn't you tell her anything? Not even to El?"

Lucas intervenes, probably feeling that my response would be out of control, "she can't know, ok? It'll be fine with Max. We just have to get there. It will take a few hours, but we'll get there. All right, Mike?"

I whisper a yes as I feel sick. I can't let El know. I can not. I lean my head back against the window and watch the streets, house, trees, and all of Hawkins's scenery become a blur.

\---------------------------  
  


I get out of my trance when I realize we're parking - very badly - in the parking lot of Chicago Hospital and I notice a lot of red hair coming through the front door. Max has a wheelchair and quickly throws down a cigarette that was smoking. _Does she still smoke? And inside the hospital?_ Lucas gets out of the car and says something to Max that I just can't understand. I let go of my seat belt and, with Kali's help, I get him out of the car.

Max comes to us, trying to disguise the nervousness, "doing shit again, Mike? Who is he? Did you kill the guy?" I can even laugh a little. 

Incredibly, we built this strong friendship over time. I don't think I know if I would survive the worst day of my life 18 months ago. Max leads us to a hospital wing that she says is safe. Lucas and I lay him on the stretcher and Kali remove the oxygen mask from his face.

Gradually, I realize how Max looks at each one of us and his face pales more and more. At that moment, she realized.

At that moment, I realized what I did.

"Mike, who is he?" Max asks me, and I mutter that she already knows, but wants to hear from me, "Mike!"

I take a deep breath, trying to be able to say it out loud and make myself believe it too.

"It's Hopper."

I answer.


	2. Chicago

****

**March 22, 2008 - Chicago, Illinois**  
  
I park on the street where Will lives with Brad, his mate for over 7 years now. It's my first time in Chicago after one year and honestly, I'm not ready to meet her now, but it's Will's birthday and I need to be there.

It's the first time in 3 years I've been here as a "single man". My divorce was finalized 4 months ago and, although it is a relief to me to have closed this cycle of my life, I am still not ready for the questions and glances of anyone, even from my closest friends.

It was a stupid idea to marry Olivia. Not that she's a bad person, she's fine, but the marriage was an escape from my mother's questions and demands, especially after El broke up with me years ago and the chances of her grandchildren coming into the family went downhill. And my mother kind of gave up on getting this from Nancy.

After the horrible break up with El, I decided to relocate and ended up meeting Olivia on the new job. Six months later I was engaged. Two months, married. And it was the most ridiculous thing I ever did.

I never wanted to have a marriage like my parents and I did exactly what they did when they got married: escape. Olivia wanted someone to lean on and me too. I don't think she ever loved as anything more but a friend. I don't care, after all.

I get out of the car nervously and head for the door of the house. I can hear the music coming from the back, it's from Berlin. I laugh with that, Will always loved Top Gun. I enter, even without knocking or ringing the bell, as I try to sing some of the music to distract myself and see something so ... beautiful. Or cheesy, it depends on how you interpret it.

_El._

She's holding a glass of soda singing _Take My Breath Away_ and it's the cutest thing I've seen in years. El, smiling silly and singing an old song with Max while Dustin pretends to be playing something he still can't decipher.

I stand watching, as in music.

_Watching every motion in my foolish lover's game_

_On this endless ocean finally lovers know no shame_

When they finish, they realize my presence there and I get a little awkward. It was a few years away from them and I regret that a lot.

"Hi," I say, embarrassed.

"Mikey! Finally, holy shit!" Max screams, making Will and Brad, stand up and come to hug me too.

I get all the hugs from my friends, even Lucas, who is smelling of cigarette smoke and crumpling my shirt. _Holy shit_.

The last person to greet me is El. I think she'll never stop being shy. Even so, it's the best hug I received that afternoon.

"I'll put our music on now that you're here, man!" Will rushes to change the music on the cd player. Quickly, Should I Stay or Should I Go starts playing and he pulls me into a weird dance. Luckily Dustin drags me by the arm, complaining that I'm a bad dancer, and takes me out of there, leading me to the garden.

  
"Come here, you have to help with food to pay the years away from us!" He says excitedly. "Dude ... I miss you... Hold me, please." 

"Okay Dustin, calm down," I say, laughing. I know it's part of his hype, but I missed it so much that I just hug him tightly.

I see El walks past us and smiles shyly. She walks toward the garden and I keep watching her leave. Dustin obviously notices, but just smiles at me.

\-----------

It's been a while since I've given up keeping my shirt clean and smoky-free. I just arrived for the birthday - which was clear in the invitation that it would be a lunch between friends, in the garden of Will and Brad's house, with a pool - pants and shirt. As I go to the University of Chicago to teach. _Shit_.

Lucas hands me a beer and I gratefully accept as we kind of get run over by Lucas and Max's, Karen and Anna. Dark-skinned girls with long hair run across the deck and play in the pool.

"Really, I never imagined that I'd be the first to be a father. And twins! I have two Ericas, man" Lucas laughs and I agree with him. Lucas and Max married? With children? _Apocalypse_.

"I always thought I'd be the first..." I say with a sad smile

"Yeah... Have you talked to her since that day?" He asks.

"No... I don't even know what to say, actually."

"She knows", he says with conviction, "she knows and will talk to you, in her own time. Listen to her, this time. Don't pay attention to your anxiety, ok?" He smiles at me, then looks at someone behind me and holy shit, I-

"Hi" and she was there. "I came to get the beers... Not for me, by the way" she tells me, smiling. I'm glad for the statement.

"You okay?" I ask, half stuttering. What a shit.

"Yeah... Are you coming? I mean, come stay with us at the pool..." she asks and I say the stupidest thing "I didn't bring swim clothes and-"

"No problem, Mike," she says, interrupting me "come on, let's leave Lucas cook alone"

"I'll never bet you anything," Lucas says, playing angry.

I let her pull me by the hand and try not to notice she's in a bikini? Oh, God. I am sure I will have a heart attack by the end of the day. I shift my attention to her hand, holding mine. It feels so right, so comfortable. I think it's the only thing I've felt so far that still seems the same.

She just drops my hand to hand the beers to Max and Brad, who are talking about something on TV, while Will and Dustin are engaged in some childish play with The Ericas by the pool. I don't have much time to try to get into the conversation as El pulls me by the hand and leads me to the kitchen of the house. Automatically I start to sweat nervously. And it gets worse when she stops and looks at me.

"Mike, I... Do you really want this beer?" she knows me so well. I say I don't want to and she takes the bottle from my hand, throwing the liquid down the sink drain.

"Thanks," I say. "You're welcome," she answers me.  
We stare at each other, in a strange silence and then she seems to be taking courage to tell me something. And I'm so afraid of what I'll hear. I will definitely have a heart attack until the end of the day

"Can we talk? Not here, not now ... Maybe after the party? I really need to talk to you... Please?"

I realize that she is apprehensive by the tone of her voice and that deeply saddens me. How could I have gone so far as to make the most important person in my life think, even for a second, that I would refuse to talk to her?

"Of course we can, El," I say, trying to sound calmer, "here, now, or...?"

"Later, when the party is over. You can come with me? To a place, I want to show you. I won't take your time, I promise, I just want you-"

"I will," I cut her. I would go anywhere she wanted to take me.

I feel more relieved when I realize she smiles at my quick response. "I'm going back to the pool, okay?" she says, with relief. "Ok, El."

And then she hugs me fast and leaves the kitchen as I watch her.

\-----------

After the conversation with El, I try to ease the anxiety by interacting with my friends at the party and slowly feel less distant.

Will and Brad will adopt an 8-year-old boy they met at the host center here in Chicago. His name is Peter and everyone is looking forward to welcoming him, Will even painted one of the rooms with the theme of favorite character: Peter Parker. I make a mental note of buying Spider-Man comics to give him.

Dustin is dating a journalist, Megan. The way he talks about her is so enchanting that I feel that this time he has found his “soul mate,” as he calls her. I'm glad about that and I want to be invited to be the best man at the wedding, but I get discouraged when I remember the time I was gone... Maybe he has someone better for the job. I don't blame him.

Max made Lucas have a vasectomy and this information makes me laugh as I imagine the scene. They returned to Chicago after Max accepted the proposal to work at the city's central hospital. Deep down, I know their decision is much more about their desire to be close and take care of El.

 _El_.

I'm glad to see her smiling after all. She looks healthy now... her hair is longer and lighter. She is wearing a weirdly printed, loose-fitting dress, which I later found to be an “abstract, emotion-filled art” made by Karen and Anna who are obsessed with her (and I understand them so well).

I feel so proud to hear that she has been back to work and is taking dance classes, walks every morning, feeding well. For a few moments I imagined myself part of her routine, but I push the thought away too quickly, I don't want to whine about how we are no longer together.

"So are you really staying for good, Mike?" Brad asks and I get a little tense. 

"Yeah, I think so" I answer, "I'll teach at the university next semester and... I came early for Will's birthday... see you guys..."

"Ah, that's cool. Already have a place to stay?" 

"Not yet ... I'm staying in a hotel near here in the next few days... I've seen some apartments for rent, I'll make some visits tomorrow and-"

  
"Come back home," El says in a half-whisper. And automatically everyone is expecting an answer from me until she continues, "I mean, if you want... so you don't need to stay in a hotel room and if you take too long to find the apartment, you don't spend so much money and... I don't know... Just it came to me in mind and-"

  
"Oh, it's ok, I know. Thanks, El... We can settle that later, okay?" I say, interrupting her because she was so nervous that I was too worried. I also realized that she was embarrassed to have proposed that in front of everyone.   
Honestly, my mind is racing because I want to go home **so badly** , but I know I need to be rational, we need to be.

We stared at each other for a while until Will comment something about the twins sleeping on each other. We laugh at the scene and Max takes some pictures, promising to make a copy for each one of us.

From that, we ended up organizing the garden and getting ready to leave. Tomorrow is Saturday and Will invites us to a Sunday lunch, perhaps "a D&D party since the master is back". I smile and accept. I want to be with them again.

\-----------

  
I go to the car awkwardly. El told me to go in her car, saying she would then bring me back to get my own car and go back to the hotel.

As we get in, I notice that she hesitates to start it and calls me in a low voice and I watch her for a while. There is something she wants to say, so I just wait.

"Mike"... I'm glad you came back home."

And I smile in response.

I am happy to be back home, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! :)  
> Thanks for the kudos!! Feedbacks are *always* welcome.


	3. Fifteen Minutes Old

I rest my head on the car window, watching the rain wash away the streets. It started to rain shortly after we got in the car. El is driving slowly and it makes me feel a little nostalgic since she always drove like this and sometimes she drove me to work when I hadn't slept enough the night before because of work.

_"You can't drive like a zombie, Mike. I'll drive you there"_

But the rain and her presence remind me of the day we broke up and it makes my anxiety worse. I think El noticed my nervousness because she turns on the radio and now we are listening to our favorite song. It's Snow Patrol's Fifteen Minutes Old. We used to listen when we started living together, in 1998. We had been dating for 3 years and at that time I already knew that I wanted to marry and be with her forever.

It did not happen.

El and I met in an interdisciplinary activity at the college in 1992. I was in my second year studying physics and she had just started the psychology course. Max, her best friend, studied medicine at the same university we did and was dating Lucas, one of my best childhood friends. My other friends lived in other states, but we always managed to get together: Will studied at the NY University of Arts and Dustin at MIT. Over time, we became an inseparable group.

With the relationship between Max and Lucas becoming more serious, El and I ended up getting closer because we were the “third wheels”. Gradually, I discovered more about her: Jane El Hopper. Adopted daughter, difficulty socializing. Extremely intelligent, but had a troubled childhood in an aggressive environment. The adoptive father is ex-police and military, Jim Hopper. He did not live with the birth mother for a long time. El is the nickname given by the father.

With time, we became best friends and we were together all the time. Lucas and Dustin even placed bets on when our wedding would be. I was already in love with her and dreamed of dating.

Our friendship and trust development allowed El to feel comfortable to open up to me about a subject she rarely spoke about: her childhood. I was discovering what happened in the place where he spent most of her time. Her biological father, Martin Brenner, was a (fucking asshole) scientist who worked for the government in the 60s-80s. Obsessed with work, he convinced his girlfriend, Terry Ives, to participate in his research, which consisted of "expanding the powers of the mind". When Terry found out her pregnancy, Brenner didn't want to stop the experiments and forced her to continue using the drugs. His obsession was so weird that he decided to test with his own daughter, still in the mother's womb. This cost Ives's sanity and life.

El was created as an object of study, isolated from anyone who could show it the minimum of fraternity and dignity. Eventually, the laboratory where El lived was invaded by the local police, who were investigating the leak of toxic material. Jim Hopper, the chief at that time, rescued her from the lab. They left Hawkins together and lived for many years in Seattle. They came to Chicago after Hopper retired, where El finished high school and entered college.

Understandably, she was so afraid to open up to other people. It took her years to tell me parts of her childhood, but it wasn't until we started dating that I found out about her biggest secret: telekinesis and telepathy. Results of the experiments Brenner made her go through.

At first, I thought El was playing tricks on me pretending to be Jean Grey until she took my book off the shelf and put it on the table for me. With the power of the mind. Scientifically impossible, I believed.

That day I considered going to a psychiatrist because I was clearly going crazy. That day I, even scared, must have fallen in love with her even more.

But it was a big secret. Jane Ives-Brenner, Brenner's 11th experiment, was, for the government, dead, as was her biological father.

Jane El Hopper is a completely different person. And my friends and I swore to keep that secret. And it's been like this forever.

El doesn't like to remember his childhood and even less about his abilities, so much so that in the 16 years we met, I could see his “magic” up close 10 times. If I were in her shoes, I would like to bury my past too.

"Mike, we're here," she says in a soft voice and I wake up from the memories.

We got out of the car and walked towards a business building.

"I think I remember this place... We came here before, right?" I ask as we get into the elevator.

"Yes, we've been years ago. There's something I want to show you."

"Ok" I reply trying to look calmer. I know exactly where we are, but I still haven't figured out what she wants to show me.

During the time that we stayed in the elevator, I decided to observe her a little more, hoping she wouldn't notice.

  
Her hair is a little longer than the last time I saw it. There is a lock of hair that is over her face and I need to keep my hands to myself to don't put it behind her ear, as I used to do when we were together.

She also returned to normal weight and smiles more. Not as much as before, but I can still see your improvement.

She realizes that I am watching her, and I try to hide it by looking at the ceiling of the elevator while my face must be a dark shade of red and my body looks as if it will burn with embarrassment. And she laughs softly at my despair.

We finally get to the floor she chose.

El guides me to one of the rooms on that floor, turning on some lights on the way. We enter a room and the memory comes to me. I know where I am and I think I know what she wants to show me.

"Remember? It is the room we visited when I was looking for a space to work outside the clinic," she tells me a little nervous, holding her left ring finger. _We used to wear a wedding ring_ , I think and want to hold her to me.

El wanted to work for herself, serving mainly young people facing family problems and socially vulnerable people. She wanted to offer more humanized and accessible medical help. I loved to hear her plans and supported her as much as I could.

"I will continue with that idea of having my own place to work. I signed the rental contract two months ago... I chose this place because it was our favorite, remember? There is that nice space that we talked about... Will is taking care of the repair and decoration. I wanted to show you because you helped me so build this..."

I am ecstatic to listen to her talk about the office. It's getting exactly as we planned. I'm so proud of what she's been achieving that I don't realize until I'm almost crying. We laughed at it because I was always much more emotional than she was at everything.

"Thank you, Mike. For everything" she says while hugging me tight and I hug her back. We stayed like that for a few minutes until I broke our embrace to try to compose myself.

I look at some boxes on the floor, but only one of them catches my attention. It has written "entertainments" and I allow myself to sit on the floor and open that box. There were several games that El said helped to relieve tension during sessions.

She sits with me, on the floor, laying her head on my shoulder and I respond by holding her hand. The proximity reminds me of when we went to my parents' house for the holidays and acted like two children on Christmas morning when we sat by the tree and tried to discover the gifts.

I realize that I haven't said a word since I left the elevator, partly because I want to say that I love her **so much** that I'm afraid to say it out loud.

"I'm sorry I left," I say the words, kind of frantic. "I know I should be around and-"

"Mike, I asked you to leave. It was my fault it all happened-"

"No, no..." I interrupt. "Please don't blame yourself for that, we had just lost Hopper, please don't blame yourself... I should have listened to you, but I got it all wrong. I'm sorry I didn't realize that you were suffering a lot for what happened, El. I'm sorry..."

She looks at me and I realize that there is something she wants to say to me. I wait, giving her time.

"Mike..." she says my name with a deep sigh and I get tense. "I... Remember when Hopper died and we stayed with your parents for Christmas?"

I say yes with my head and think about that night. It was our first Christmas without Hopper, who celebrated with us every year. It was a difficult time for El, who was distant and sad almost all the time and I didn't know what to do. _“I'm fine, it will pass. Just stay with me”_ was what she said to me whenever I asked if everything was okay.

"I heard what your dad told you that night..." shit, I think. I put my head in my hands, nervous. It's painful to remember that. "He was right, in a way..."

"He wasn't, no."

"Mike, I couldn't give you anything. I still _can't_."

I try to interrupt her because I don't want to go through this again, but she holds my head tightly.

"Listen to me, okay? I was wrong to hear what your father said that night and not what you said and demonstrated to me all the time. Mike, you know I always wanted to have a normal life after all and I felt so good being with you, but there’s still that part that was taken away from both of us, you know that. I always wanted to be a mother and I found out later that I wanted to have this baby with you, but they took that choice away from me, from both of us... After Hopper, I... I felt lost again... It was like that man could come back and take me away... I was a child again, I had lost the person who took me out of that hell, I had lost my father... I had nightmares almost every night about them finding me and take me back." she says crying and I am a mess again. 

  
I heard all that and hated myself even more for not insisting on us at the time. If I could go back, I would.

"Nancy and I heard that you and your father were arguing in the garage... I went to see you and I heard when he said that you deserved better, that I could never give you what you deserved..." she says as I close my eyes because I can't see her suffering again.

"God, El..."

"Mike, please forgive me... I was sick and after that day I could only think about it..." I can't hear that anymore.

"Why did you believe that shit?" I say in a sharper tone and hurry to compose myself. "We thought about adopting! You knew it wasn't a problem between us... Why didn't you tell me you heard that fucking bullshit?"

"Because you would insist and I needed you to move on, Mike. I loved you and didn't want to drown you with me -"

"Did you?" I ask scared of her answer. I don't want her to stop loving me.

" I do. And I still don't think I can drown you with me."

I get up and spend some time with my head against the window, watching the city being soaked by rain. I relive that night while I watch.

_El came home late at night, months after Hopper's death, a little drunk and drenched in rain. My first reaction is to help her take off her wet clothes._

_"El, I called you more than a thousand times, why didn't you answer me? I went crazy with worry, not knowing what had happened to you... Where were you? What happened?"_

_Suddenly, she turns away from me, crying and for a moment I think she is going into another panic attack, or that something serious has happened on the way home, which makes me even more desperate. She pulls me away when I try to hug her and finally starts talking._

_"I need you to go and live your life, Mike. I can't give you anything" she said not looking at me._

_"What? El, seriously, you're drunk. Where were you, huh? With Kali?"_

_"Mike, leave me alone" she is shivering so much, due to the cold and nervousness, and I start to get nervous because I don't know how to act. I don't know how to act when I have no control over the situation._

_"Come on, I'll give you a bath and we'll talk, okay?" I try to hold her hand, but she pushes me away._

_"I don't want to live with you!" she yells at me. What the fuck? "I wasn't with Kali, okay? I was in the car with a guy I met at the bar and we had sex, okay? I fucked someone else. I cheated on you, that's it. Please go away. I don't love you anymore and you need to move on because I can't drown you with me, okay?"_

Everything she said to me was so fake that if I were acting rationally that night, I would have ignored it and take her to a shower. But I was not well and I yelled back at her.

_"Do you think I'm an idiot? What is your problem? I know you were with Kali today, I called your work and I was told you went out with your drugged whore sister"_

_She looked at me startled by my reaction._

And I know I should have listened to what she said and calmed her down, talked. To have spoken less and heard more, to have been kind. But hearing all of that after months of not knowing how to act with her, hating myself for being useless during her grief and realizing that she got closer to the sister I hated instead of me made me fall into a wave of irrational anger. And somehow, I believed what she believed. So when she asked me to leave again because she didn't love me anymore, I left.

"Mike? Did you got lost between time and space?" I hear her voice taking me out of the daze. Being lost between time and space was a joke we used to make when we were dating. I researched the subject in college and was so immersed in work that she said I was going to get stuck in this unreachable place.

I look back at El and see as she wipes away her tears with the back of her hands. I walk to her until I lie on the floor, resting my head on her lap, as we used to do after a long day. All the proximity is so familiar that I want to stay here for the rest of my life, with her, feeling her fingers on my hair with affection.

I don't want to talk about Hopper's death, I don't want to talk about Christmas, what my dad told me, let alone about the day I left. I don't want to remember our traumas. I just want to stay here, with her, in the place she chose to have a fresh start and wanted to share it with me.

El begins to sing softly the song we were listening to in the car and I hold her close to me. Gradually, I feel more relieved and I realize that she feels the same. I think we needed to talk about it, even if it was painful for both of us.

  
"I love you" I let it slip, but I'm not tense about it. She laughs softly and holds my head so we can look at each other.

"I love you too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Thank you so much for the kudos and comments, it makes me really happy.   
> I apologize for any mistakes. 
> 
> Have a good sunday! :)


	4. What they took away from me

"Jane, isn't it time to finish?" I hear my dance instructor's voice and stop, gasping, to answer her.

"I'm sorry, I lost track of time. I had a confusing week, I wanted to de-stress today" I say, a little awkwardly. I haven't met or spoken to Mike since our conversation in my office two days ago, and it's been making me anxious. "I'm leaving, I'll just take a shower before heading home." 

"It's all right, dear. But be careful with your left ankle, okay? Don't get hurt." she tells me in a lovely way and I smile back. Lucy reminds me of a Karen Wheeler: kind, loving and caring. The thought makes me think again about Mike. _Shit_.

I march towards the ladies' room and get rid of the dance clothes, then turn on the shower. The hot water helps to soothe the stress in my muscles, but it doesn't get me out of my mind.

 _You need to give him time_ , I tell myself.

I spend some time just feeling the water drain over my body, trying to calm the turmoil that has been on my mind for the past few days.

When I leave the stall, I start to dry off when I remember that I have dinner tonight with Kali. _Shit, Kali_. I still haven't thought about how to tell her that I proposed to Mike to move back in with me, in the apartment that we used to live in together.

I hurry to get ready and look in the mirror while fixing my hair. When I feel like I'm minimally presentable, the bathroom light flashes by itself.

I don't give it much attention and, as I'm about to leave, I have the impression that I saw something strange in the mirror. When I return and face it, I realize that it reflects the wall of a bathroom, but I don't see myself in it and it's not the reflection of where I am.

It looks like the same place, but dark, cold and destroyed.

My cell phone rings and I get scared. Suddenly, I am no longer seeing the reflection of the destroyed bathroom, but the normal reflection, where I appear as well.

I hurry to get my cell phone and leave the building as soon as possible and head towards my car. I drop the ignition key and notice that my hands are shaking. I can't drive in these conditions, so I do what I recommend to my patients during an anxiety attack: I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

I calm down a few minutes later. It was just stress and tiredness, my mind played a trick on me, reminding me of the horrible movie that Dustin made me watch last week.

I remember the dinner with Kali and started the car, hurriedly on my way home.

\------------------------------

I meet Kali in the elevator of my building and she looks at me dirty. 

"Seriously, El? Tell me there's something ready in the fridge, please" she says, making fun of me.

I met Kali in 2003 when I decided to find something new about my mother. One of her best friends had sued Brenner for kidnapping, torture, and murder in the same year that my mother passed away. Ms. Prasad claimed that she had a daughter, Kali Prasad, who was kidnapped in a hospital after being hospitalized for a “high-risk medical procedure” that she claimed was false. In the process, Ms. Prasad accused the hospital of giving her a “fake body” to manipulate her daughter's death.

My **father** , Hopper, disapproved of my desire to search for Kali, afraid that we would be discovered by the remaining agents of Brenner's program (the CIA is involved and honestly, I don't know how I managed to live all these years with another identity, but I guess that's my a result of my father's brilliant brain). Mike disapproved too, but he got tired of insisting that I forget the story when he realized that I wouldn't give up. I wanted to understand if anyone connected to Brenner's experiences looked like me in some way.

With Lucas working for the FBI, it was easier to convince them. Even with my father and my friend searching for Kali, there was no trace of her but the death certificate and her mother's endless search. Over time, Hop gave up looking for her, saying “it was better this way, for everyone”.

On the _void_ , I found Kali coming out of a building in downtown Chicago. She is so close to me, I thought back then. I waited for the right moment until I met her in person.

  
"Of course, there's food at my house, God... What do you think I eat?"

"With paranoia." I look at her and she laughs at me. Moments like this make me think about how complete we feel when we meet. Kali doesn't have the same skills as me. She can, with the power of the mind, make people see only what she wants. Unlike me, she is delighted with the “superpowers”.

We enter my apartment and realize that she is holding a bottle of wine. I give her a questioning look and she shrugs, complaining that I don't have alcohol at home. Of course I don't. I have stopped drinking anything that contains alcohol since the incident one year and a half ago, which I would love to erase not only from my mind but from the mind of everyone I love, especially Mike.

I watch Kali making herself comfortable at my house apartment and go straight for the kitchen to open the bottle of wine. I decide to hurry up and bake the lasagna that I had prepared this morning and was in the fridge.

"So... I heard he came back, right?" Kali says, to my surprise.

Mike and Kali hate each other and this is a problem that I don't know how to deal with. At first, they just distrusted each other, but after the incident, they started to hate each other, I don't think they would be able to spend five minutes alone without fighting.

"Yes, he did... I met him on Will's birthday. He's fine... We talked a little." I respond cautiously. I want to know what she already knows about Mike.

"Oh, sure... Did his wife come back too? What's her name again? Livia-"

"It's Olivia. She didn't... they're not together anymore, Kali"

"Did he cheat on her?" Kali looks at me with a weird smile. _The fuck?_

"What? No, my god... Mike would never do that to anyone."

"Why not? To my knowledge, he married Olivia just to make you angry, didn't he?" she says, staring at me and I take a deep breath. I know that Mike never loved Olivia and their marriage was much more of an "agreement" than normal marriage. But deep down, I know he did it to forget me. I don't question him for doing that, I've had relationships with other men for the past three years hoping that one of them would make me forget Mike. But I could never forget him.

"Kali, you know it wasn't like that, please-"

"Jane, seriously." She says a little nervous. "Why do you want me to have the least respect for him? The guy abandoned you and accused me of drugging you and-"

"OK enough!" I yell at her, but soon I realize my mistake and try to calm down. I don't want to fight with my sister. "Can we just have a nice dinner? Please? Don't talk about that day, okay?" 

Kali stares at me, a little disappointed, and drinks a whole glass of wine.

"I had a very tiring day today," I continue "I just want to have dinner with my sister, please, Kali."

"If it's what you want," she says. 

An uncomfortable silence remains between us until she decides to go to the living room and turn on the TV while dinner is not ready. I let out a heavy sigh and I know that tonight will not be as I expected.

\------------------------------

We decided to have dinner while watching a creep movie that honestly doesn't care much about the story. I can't get my mind off the conversation I had with Mike in the office after Will's birthday. The part that comforts me is that he still loves me, even after all. And the part that terrifies me is his silence for the past two days. Does he regret it?

Fortunately, I can dismiss the thought thanks to the sound of the bell. But I don't remember waiting for someone. I ask Kali the same question and she says she doesn't expect anyone either. I run to answer the door and -

  
"Mike?" _Mike! Shit_

"Hi. I'm sorry to show up at your house like that, it's just..." he stops talking and I take time to at him a little. He is wearing the same outfit as when he goes to work: a suit, dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes. I can't quite understand why he started to dress like that even outside the classroom, but I don't complain. I like how he dresses for work. He's wearing his glasses and his beard is unshaven. It looks like he didn't sleep well last night and I wonder why.

"I called you earlier, but you didn't answer..." he tells me and I get out of the trance. So it was him when I was in the bathroom and I saw that strange thing in the mirror.

"Sorry," I say to him "I stayed until later today in dance class, I think I was in the shower when you called me... uh, come on in."

"Thank you" he enters and I remember Kali in the room. Fuck!

I wait for a complaint from one of them, but I hear nothing.

Kali is hiding from him. I scowl at her without him noticing, but she ignores me. I turn my attention to him when he starts to speak. "El, I... I know I disappeared in the last two days, I'm sorry. I just... I needed time to think about everything. I called you because I wanted to know if you would accept dinner with me tonight, but you didn't answer and I was a little worried and decided to come here." he laughs awkwardly, but I think his nervousness is cute. "Look, I..."

He doesn't finish the sentence and I don't really care about it because the next thing I feel is his lips on mine and, suddenly, all that pain that I felt since we broke up disappears.

His kiss is shy, but it's still the same. The warmth of his skin on mine, our noses touching, his smell, his hand in my hair... Everything is the same.

I respond to the kiss more urgently than I expected and he decides to respond in the same way. The feeling of safety that he always gave me takes over me and, if I had a choice, I would live in this moment with him forever.

Mike holds me tight and we get lost on our kiss until we hear someone clearing their throat next to us. I completely forgot about Kali.

She acts as if she has just left the bathroom, looking directly at Mike, who is torn between looking at the two of us, into a mixture of shock and anger.

"Mike, I didn't know you were around," she says "how's your wife?" and before he answers, I interrupt them

"Kali, Mike is no longer married to Olivia. I told you about it, remember?" I give her a scolding look and she just smiles weakly.

"Really, sorry. It wouldn't even make sense Mike to kissing you while married. Right, Mike?" 

I feel tense as Mike gets closer to Kali to offer his hand. She accepts it. Suddenly, he turns to me.

"So, I just wanted to know if you wanted to have dinner tonight, but you girls are busy, so..." He says, breathing hard. "I gotta go. I'll call you later, I want to talk to you, ok?"

A little nervous, I say that it's okay and I feel his lips on mine, in a small kiss. When I see him heading towards the door, I follow and kind of hurry him out of the apartment with me.

"Wait, Mike..."

"What is she doing here?" he says when I close the door. "El, really, after everything she did?" I just take a deep breath. "Mike, please, not now. Look, she is my sister and-"

"She's not your sister-"

"She is!" I say firmly. "She is the only person I have sometimes-"

"She's not the only, damn it, El! So many people love you! They love you, they want you alive and well. I want you!" he says a little surprised with himself. I know that momentary anger will pass, so I just hug him, partially because I miss him so much that I want to be as close as possible. I feel his arms embracing me and soon his breathing is back to normal.

"I'm sorry, okay? I know she means a lot to you, I just care about you too, you know?" He tells me in a tired voice, but without letting me go. I cling to him as much as I can.

"I know, I know... She won't do that again." I interrupt our hug and hold his face to look him in the eye. "I promise."

I watch as he understands what I just promised him. I understand his concern, he has always been like that, with everyone he loves. Our friends call him “old dad” since they were all ten years old. I think the care and affection he shows for us was one of the things that made me in love with him.

"El... can I still come and live with you? He says in a whisper as if he is afraid of my answer. At that moment, Mike looks like a boy, so fragile, waiting for the answer to something that is important to him.

"It's your home too. You can come whenever you want." I answer and he breathes relieved, smiling at me.

"Thanks," he says to me in a sweet voice. "I need to go... I wanted to have dinner with you to get away from work papers.

I laugh with him and realize that I still hold his hand. I hold onto the feeling of our touch and move closer until my forehead touches his.

"Sorry about Kali, okay? I want her with me, she's family... But I also want you in my life. I can't choose between you two, do you understand?" He doesn't say anything at first and I give him a long kiss on the cheek. He sighs tiredly. "I just want to see you ok"

"I am fine. I promise." He kisses me again and then smiles shyly. "Can I move in tomorrow?" he asks me. "Whenever you want"

The elevator stops on our floor hugs me again. I take advantage of his presence to calm all the confusion that exists in me. And I already miss the comfort he provides me as soon as we parted and he gets on the elevator. Mike waves at me as the doors close. I really didn't want him to leave now.

\------------------------------

When I return to the apartment, Kali has just finished washing ous dishes and is cleaning the kitchen. I feel that her silence is a sign of disapproval and I try to prepare myself for what is to come, especially with his return home. I decide to tell at once. "Kali, I need to tell you something."

"Say it" she replies drily.

"Mike is moving in back here soon. He must move in tomorrow" I say "tomorrow" just because I'm anxious. I know Mike will prefer to check the apartment space and organize his things in the hotel before coming here, so it should take a few days. "He will come back because this is his home too. I hope you understand..."

"I understand. Does that mean I can't come here anymore?" She asks me without looking at me.

"Of course you can come here. Look, choosing between the two of you is impossible, I will not do that. I just ask you to be civilized with each other until you feel ready to talk and solve your problems, okay?" Kali stares at me for a while until she leaves the kitchen and takes her jacket back, putting it on. I know she will leave before our arrangement - which was to sleep here - and it hurts me a little, makes me think about how I'm never completely happy.

When I was finally free from the lab, I had to hide for years. But I got a real father, a family, even a small one.

When I got this family, I found out what they did to me all those years. The chances they took away from me, the choices I will never be able to make.

When I met someone with whom I could be myself and share my future, I realized that what we wanted the most was impossible. They took what would become the crib of our babies inside me. We couldn't choose to have them or not. There was no chance because they cut me open and took off my uterus. _Pregnancy brings to many changes to the object of study_ , Brenner wrote in the paper records.

When we decided that we would make our choices regardless of what they did to me, they took my father away from me, in a fucking-stupid car accident, when he was on his way to meet us, and I would tell him how Mike and I were going to adopt a child, as he did with me.

As if I just couldn't get what I wanted completely. I can get Mike back, but I can lose my sister. Perhaps complete happiness was not for me.

So I watch as Kali leaves the apartment and I am all alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thanks for reading! Again, I apologize for any grammar mistakes. I'm really tired this weekend, so I may have failed the review. See you soon. :)


	5. Photography

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! 
> 
> Jenny Feldmann (@elbgestoeber)'s Instagram is also a blog about her house. And her apartment is exactly what I imagined for El (and Mike!)'s home. Go check!
> 
> Thank you all for the kudos and loooove. See ya soon!

  
After meeting El and, unfortunately, Kali, I didn't want to go back to the hotel. I felt that I needed to vent my frustration about Kali. So, this is why Will looks at me with a disapproving look after I told him what happened in the apartment. I look back at him, unsure if he was on my side or her side.

"I'm right, right?" I say a little irritated. "What the fuck was she doing there, Will? Why is El still so... close to her?"

"Dude, you're not right," Will tells me and I don't even know how to react. But before I start complaining, he raises his hands to me "Look, let me finish, okay? What happened is now past. El decides who she wants around, not you. And if she decided to forgive Kali, I think you should try the same."

"Never!" I shout, angrily, while Will just stares at me seriously long enough to shut me up for good.

"Maybe you should think about your choices. Do you really want to be with El?" I nod in response. Of course, I want to go back to El. "Then you need to understand her choices. Mike, think about it, you need to calm down. You have this bad habit of thinking with your ass when you get angry. Put yourself in her shoes, what if you had to choose between El and Nancy?"

"Bullshit. Nancy is my sister and a great person, okay?"

"Yeah, and so is Kali and - shut up and listen to me! She is! El loves her as if they were blood sisters. You will need to overcome this, Mike".

I find myself without options in this situation, so I sit on the couch and cover my face with my hands. I know Will is right - in parts - but I know I can't forgive Kali for what she did. My head feels like it's going to explode.

I feel Will's hand on my shoulder. "Think of something else. How was it meeting El again, huh?"

I smile when I remember our kiss in the apartment. It was as if we had never parted ways. If I could, I would live that moment with her forever.

"We kissed..." I say, shyly. It feels like I'm talking to my best friend about my first kiss in elementary school.  
"Seriously?" Will asks me, excited. "That's a sign, isn't it? You guys will be together again, right?"

"I don't know... She invited me to live with her in the apartment that was ours and today it was so nostalgic... She said I can come back whenever I want. I wanted to come back tomorrow, but there's so much to organize and -"

"Move in already!" Will says cutting me off. 

"What?"

"Move in!" Will says again a little urgently. "Seriously, what are you going to organize, Mike? There is almost nothing in the hotel, the boxes with your things will come from your old home by the carrier, ask them to deliver right there..." Oh, God.

"Will, I don't even know how the apartment is... I need to talk to El first... - 

"It's exactly as you left it, Mike." He tells me so confident, but I don't believe it very much. "She hasn't changed a thing."

I know that I left some things behind when I moved to New York and a voice in my mind keeps saying that she got rid of everything. I would understand her reasons for trying to erase me, but apparently, she didn't even try, quite the opposite. It surprises me.

"Visit her tomorrow. Go there with waffles for a... romantic breakfast. And talk. She works tomorrow, so she leaves home around 9 am. Arrive at 7 am, she'll be awake." he speaks so confidently that I don't even dare question. I am the stranger here, not him. "Look, I'm dying of sleep. If you want to rest here, feel free, okay? The last room in the hall is yours. See you tomorrow, Mike."

"See you tomorrow. Thank you, Will." I say while he pats me on the shoulder.

"ROMANTIC BREAKFAST!" he shouts. Oh, God.

I hear Will going to his room and keep thinking about everything we talked about. Forgive Kali, move in with El, my things kept in the apartment...

In this pile of doubts in my mind, I notice that Will has some pictures in the living room wall and one of them is ours from a few years ago. I immediately remember when that picture was taken. It was on my 30th birthday, a surprise party at the beach house that belonged to Max's father. Will hugs me sideways and we both smile at the photo, not because I'm nice or photogenic, but because El photographed us while trying to make me laugh at any cost.

I hold that picture, remembering that day in California, and think about how I want to have those happy days back.

**\-----------------------------------------------**

I ring the apartment bell a little nervously, holding two large cups, one with coffee and the other with hot chocolate, and a medium box with a generous serving of waffles with whipped cream, chocolate, and strawberry. It’s a sugar bomb, but it’s what El's favorite, so I don’t have many options (I do, but I’ll do anything for her).

She answers the door completely differently from how I found her yesterday. She looks like didn't get any sleep last night and is wearing a dark blue sweatshirt that looks too big for her body.

I give a weak smile to try to break the ice and she answers me with a confused look. 

"Is everything ok?" she says to me, not quite believing that I'm here.

"Yeah, it's fine... I brought you breakfast. I stopped by at that café I know you love and brought some things, I hope you like it and..." I stop talking when I realize that I am rambling like a teenager. But I'm relieved when she smiles at me and opens the door wider, giving me entrance to the apartment. This time, I try to observe the environment, looking for something that is familiar, but I am interrupted by her voice behind me.

"Thank you, Mike. For the breakfast" she says quietly and I start to think it was a bad idea to have come here. "Are you going to move in now? I'm sorry, I didn't even get dressed or anything... I'm still a mess. I'll be right back, stay here!" and she runs towards the bathroom. I just watch, a little silly, how she reacted to my visit. I still don't know if it was a good idea or not.

I disobey her and leave things on the kitchen counter and try to take advantage of the fact that she is out to look more into the apartment. The furniture is the same, except for a coffee table in the room. The decor is still the same. Material things are still here.

But one thing, in particular, catches my attention. There is a box half-open on the table in the living room. Some things are out of it, some pictures and a notebook, but I pull back when I hear the sound of the bathroom door.

"Okay, now I look less wild," she tells me with a more relaxed smile, but I can't help noticing the dark circles and her tired face. I disperse the thoughts that something bad has happened and I try to silence my curiosity, with an embarrassed smile for her.

"I have to work today," she tells me while drinking some of the hot chocolate I brought "but you can stay here if you want, no problem. If you want to, you know, organize things before moving in..." 

"Ah, yeah," sometimes I think she is more anxious about moving than I am "I still need to organize the transportation of my things that were in New York, so maybe it will take a week or two for me to move in here, so..." 

"I see... Is there still a lot there with Olivia? By the way, how is she?" El asks me, curious. She and Olivia talked a few times after what happened to El and I feel happy about it.

"I only care about the books there, there are not many things there..." I say smiling and I notice that El smiles too, even with his mouth full of waffles "Olivia is fine... the last time we talked, she had just had dinner with a guy. He seems cool, so... I hope it works out." I say, relieved for Liv.

"Oh, great, so... I hope it works, too." We sit there, eating, in silence for a while, but there is something in the air that bothers us. I know it. I know I need to apologize for what I said yesterday about Kali and the conversation I had with Will is on my mind.

At the same time, I think about how she looks too tired to talk and still needs to get ready for work in a little while. I make a mental note to offer her a ride.

This whole impasse makes me sad that we are like this now, insecure with each other. This is one of the things I never imagined would happen to us, but I prefer to push that thought to the back of my mind when I look at El and she smiles at me, again, with her mouth full of waffles.

"El... is everything ok?" She looks at me surprised and, for a moment, I get caught in her brown eyes. My question makes her a little uncomfortable and she takes the time she needs while drinking some more of the hot chocolate.

"I am fine. I just... Yesterday I had some scary dreams, I ended up not being able to sleep..." I get a little worried about that. When Hopper died in a car accident, on his way to this apartment, El was so unhealthy that she had constant nightmares about him. "It was... my father. And I. But I was still a child, in the dream. I think I was about 13 ou 14, but I didn't see myself..." she takes a deep breath and I wait for her. "I could only see my father in an unfamiliar place, it looked like an abandoned hospital... It looked a lot like Hawkins' Lab... Anyway, it was a very abandoned and destroyed place. And cold, everything seemed cold. He just walked around this place and I heard my voice calling out to him. Every time I slept, I ended up dreaming about it, as if the dream continued, you know? I could not sleep."

I try to analyze the dream she had, but it seems to be a combination of her fears, so I just hold her hand, which was on the table, and she returns the grip. I notice that her hand is very cold and I find it weird, so I try to warm it up as I can.

"But I'm fine, I swear. I'm just sleepy and I can't forget a bizarre movie that Dustin made me watch, so..." we ended up laughing together. Dustin has bad cinematic references. "the movie was terrible, I don't even remember what it was about, but I think it had to do with an alternate reality... I don't know."

"Alternate reality, uh?" I ask, curious. I loved studying it in college.

"Yeah, but it's not even worth it, really."

"Okay," I say, laughing, as I grab the packages from what I bought at the café. The whole interaction is so nostalgic that I feel at home again. "Are you going to work today? Do you want me to take you?" I look back and see that she looks at me somewhat surprised by the offer.

"I need to get dressed first, it should take a while. I'm not going to delay you, am I?" she asks me a little worried. "I'm free today, don't worry." and as soon as I finish speaking, I feel her arms around me, in a tight hug that she gave me from behind. But I don't have time to turn around and hug her back because El is gone to the bathroom, saying I can make myself comfortable.

This time I take the opportunity to look at the apartment. The plant we started to create when we moved here is much bigger than I imagined. El placed it near one of the living room's windows.

I look at the photos in the room and realize that ours - only ours - together are not in the frames anymore and I feel sad about that. I think I hold on too much into Will's comment that everything was as I left it three years ago.

I am present in some photos around the room. A photo of the whole group, in an old bar, on our last day of school at college, when El and I were dating and I don't think anyone took us seriously at that time. A photo of her with Will and Dustin trying to share a tiny sofa when we traveled to Las Vegas a thousand years ago. A picture of me with Max and Lucas, at their wedding. At the time, Max was in the 2nd month of pregnancy and didn't know it yet. Others with Kali and Hopper. But there are no photos of us or me, alone.

  
I stumble over the coffee table and see the box half-open that I noticed before. There are some photographs set on it, but I can't see, there is a notebook covering them. I know it's wrong, very wrong, to touch the things on the table because they are probably hers, but I hold on to the hope that there is at least one memory of me in this house.

I sit on the couch trying to decide - anxiously - whether or not to look at things on the table. I decide to take a photo, just one. _If it's not ours, I forget that_ , I think. I choose one and I am surprised, I never knew about that photo. It's me, sleeping, in the room that was ours. It seems to be the beginning of the day and I am alone, the bed neatly made, which is weird, since the bed always dawned a mess, partly because we made it, partly because El always moves a lot while sleeping.

  
I try at all costs to think about the day this photo was taken, but I can't remember it at all. I turn it over and find something written on it and I know it's El's handwriting. Chicago, 10/2006. I wish you were here now.

I put the photo back on the table, trying to make it look like it was never touched. October 2006, I think. A month earlier, I was at a press conference at Hawkins about astrophysics. On the night of September 23, I returned to Chicago, after almost two years away, because of a call I had just received. El was crying on the phone, saying goodbye and apologizing to me for something I didn't understand at the time.

When I arrived at that apartment that night, I found Kali sleeping on the couch and the table in the living room, a different one we have now, was full of cocaine. I ignored her and looked around for El in the apartment, until I found her unconscious in the bathroom, her head in a pool of vomit and blood. Ten minutes later we were at the hospital. If I had arrived just minutes later, she would not be here now. That day in September was the worst day of my life.

I don't know how long I am stuck remembering that night, but I get out of the trance when I hear El's distant voice saying she is ready. She is wearing a simple blouse and jeans and low-heeled shoes. I get up, trying not to look a little shaken by the photograph I found and watch her finish putting on a soft pink lipstick to finish the simple makeup she wears from time to time.

"Ready?" she asks me, looking happy and I see that, now, she has more expression marks (Nancy taught me that term) than the last time I remember seeing her. It makes me think about when how long we know each other and how I am grateful to have you here today.

"Yeah" I say, opening the door for both of us.

**\-----------------------------------------------**

I watch as El gets out of the car, closes the door and waves her hand to me. As I prepare to back up and go on my way, I hear El knock on the car window, probably having forgotten something.

"Mike," she says, without looking directly at me "I saw that you were looking at a photo..." I freeze at that moment and think of something to justify my actions, but she interrupts all my thoughts. "That photo you saw, I took that night you slept at home before I went to rehab. All of our photos are in that box. I took it off because I didn't know what it would be like when you got back there... I thought you might not want to see them. I didn't know what you would think..." she tells me nervously, so I hold her hand.

"Can I see you tonight?" I say, looking forward to her answer. I want her to know that I want us back together.

She says yes, so I let her go.


	6. New Job

I try to balance the bags with the groceries and answer the phone at the same time, while I walk towards my car in the parking lot of the market that El and I did home shopping when we lived together. Well, we are living together now and I'm holding a lot of bags because this is going to be my first night back home and I just dropped her off at work. I want tonight to be special.

Somehow, I manage to answer the phone and soon realize that it is the voice of a stranger.

"Mr. Wheeler, how are you?" says the person on the other end of the line. It seems to be someone much older than me. "This is Sam Owens, professor, and researcher at the University of Chicago. We are colleagues!"

"Oh, hi!" I say, still confused. Who is this guy? "I think we haven't met in person yet, have we?"

"Not yet, son," he says laughing and I try to keep the phone between my shoulder and ear as I open the car's door. "I would like to say something... We are entering in a special project in Hawkins. You were chosen to join me in this work. The council decided that we will not be teaching this semester, our attention will be devoted to the project."

_What?_

"Do I need to leave Chicago? I just got back and I have things to do here, Mr. Owens. And I don't remember being invited for anything." I say, a little worried. I don't want to go to Hawkins, there's nothing for me there, even if it's only a few hours away from here.

"You don't have to leave, son" why does he call me son? "Actually, the government needs our help, so we were chosen. It should only last a few months and it won't be every day of the week. I expect you here at the University tomorrow, to discuss this, okay? I'll send you an email later. Have a nice day." and then he just finished the call.

I am a little confused by what he said. There is nothing interesting about Hawkins, except the laboratory and energy center. I visited only once, at the astrophysics conference, but the place makes me sick, especially because of what they were doing there back in the '80s. It was in that place that El was treated like a laboratory rat. I don't even know how to tell her that I will work there for a while. I get in the car and make a mental note that I need to talk to Lucas as soon as possible.

**\-------------------------------------------------------------**

Lucas has been drinking the 2nd bottle of beer since he arrived at the apartment. I told him about the "invitation" to the project at Hawkins Lab while I cook dinner and he seems just as apprehensive as me.

"First thing," I stop everything to pay attention to what he has to say to me "how did you get into this apartment?"

"Really?" and he just nods "I'm back... I'll live here. El gave me the key. Now, please tell me what you think about what I just told you about."

"I don't know what to say, to be honest" oh God, this is so frustrating. "I work tonight, so I'll see if I find out anything. The last time I checked, last week, everything was as it should be: 011 and Jane Ives are dead. Jane Hopper is Jane Hopper. I just ask you not to be paranoic unnecessarily. And go to Hawkins, maybe there is something important there and you can anticipate it for me. If not, it must be some crazy scientist nonsense."

It doesn't relieve me at all. To think that they chose me, within so many options, for this project in that cursed place makes me reach the edge of an outbreak, so I turn my attention to the food. "I'm just worried, you know..."

"I know, Mike. We all are... But, think with me, if something is going to happen, we'll know beforehand, right? We made a promise." he says putting his hand on my shoulder and I try to calm down. It was what we agreed on for over fifteen years and it has worked. We'll know beforehand.

"Look, I think you don't know, so I apologize for breaking it for you..., but today is Wednesday..."

"And...?" Lucas laughs at my scared face. Moron.

"Usually, on Wednesdays, I work at night and Max is on duty at the hospital, so it's the girls' night... got it? The girls, El, Karen and Anna." I'm surprised by that, so I get a little gaped and Lucas laughs even more at me "Sorry to ruin your romantic dinner, man."

"It's not a romantic dinner..." yes, it is. "I just wanted to do something nice... Does she always stays with the girls?" I ask, curious.

" For almost a year now" Lucas smiles with that and I smile back. I am happy to know that she is close to the girls, much more than I am, which makes me sad thinking that I need to regain friendship with my “nieces” because I spent so much time away from them.

I remember when the girls were newborns and El and I were ecstatic just to carry them. We wanted a baby so badly, but we couldn't. We can't. I wonder if El still thinks about adoption even after all these years.

"I wish you and El could have children together" I hear Lucas. I also wanted so much. "I know adoption was never a problem for you, it's just... I remember when Max was pregnant and El always asked her what it felt like to have a baby inside her..." he stops for a moment and takes a deep breath. "If Brenner was alive, I would get him. He would pay for what he did to her." 

He reminds me of all the times I saw her sad because she couldn't do or have what she wanted because of Brenner. I was so angry that I wished he was alive so I could kill him, but I tried to distance that thought from me as quickly as possible, remembering what Hopper used to say: killing Brenner would not solve anything.

Still, Hopper got him in 1983 and made sure to kill him. I am grateful for that.

"You will be amazing parents one day," Lucas says and I feel moved by it. I hope we can do it. "I bet that next year you will be looking for a big house, full of bedrooms and a garden for the children... Then they will grow and fill you with questions, you will have to unfold to answer and they will grow old 10 years in 10 days... It will be epic."

We laugh about it and I find myself imagining this future with El. I really hope we can get it together.

"Lucas, give me a tip... what can I do to be friends with the girls again?" I ask, awkwardly. On Will's birthday, they just wanted El and the pool. And candy. The rest just didn't exist.

"Madagascar. They love it and you’ll probably watch it today. Bring ice cream and be cool, that's all. They have changed a lot since you left, but it will be okay. They like space, galaxies... talk to them about it. It will work, I promise." 

**\-------------------------------------------------------------**

El opens the door to the apartment and I can hear the little screams of happiness coming from the girls, who are completely in love with her.

I ended up renting the movie and buying all the goodies from their night before I went to get El from work. Somehow, the surprise I wanted to do for both of us ended up being for the four of us and I felt like the best guy in the world when El hugged me tight for having “saved the night” since she had forgotten about the date.

But that doesn't stop me from getting a little nervous when they notice me in the living room, so I say a shy hello and get a quick hug from both of them in response.

"Hey, Mike!" I hear Max and I realize that she is coming to hug me "Good to see you here" she tells me softly while hugging me. It's good to have people like Max around. She punches me lightly on the shoulder when she lets me go and I understand her malicious smile, which makes me red like a tomato.

"Girls, you know that Uncle Mike is kind of dizzy, right? Take care of him!" Max says her daughters and they just laugh at me."

"Max! My God..." El says, scolding her, but I know that deep down she is amused. "Get out of here, seriously" she shoves Max, who sends kisses to the girls. I notice that the two of them keep whispering at the door, but I hear my name in a high-pitched voice.

"Uncle Mike, we already had dinner, can you bring the ice cream?" I'm not sure if I should fall for Anna's bullshit, but I accept the proposal. Karen decides to come with me to the kitchen, “to help”, according to her. When I start picking up the jars to put the ice cream on, she decides to speak, a little shyly. 

"Why did you left?" I am astonished for a moment and I don't know what to say. Telling the truth would only make things worse. _Hey, Karen, I left because I was mad at your Auntie, El, so when you told me to go I went._ It's horrible to an eight-year-old, so I try to invent something that will convince her.

"I had to go to a special job... in New York" and she keeps staring at me. 

"And did it take that long?" _oh no._

"Yes... it was very complicated." I say, without looking at her. _Please, God, make this child believe me._

"Hm..." she says and it is obvious that she didn't believe me "Don't go away anymore. Aunt El was very sad... Are you still dating each other?"

"I will never go away again" I hurry to say "I don't know yet if she is my girlfriend, I need to ask first... But I will stay and your Aunt will be very happy."

"Okay. My mom said she was going to cut your toy if you leave again." _what the hell?_ "But you're old, I don't know why you have a toy." and she leaves the kitchen, just like this.

_Shit, Max._

_**\-------------------------------------------------------------** _

In the end, the girls' night was interesting. Anna made sure to narrate Madagascar to me and included me in every conversation, asking me what I thought about any topic they discussed. Meanwhile, Karen was constantly clinging to El, looking at me sideways from time to time and I felt that she still considered me a stranger, but an acceptable stranger. I need to ask El how to win the friendship of my goddaughter.

When I return from the kitchen, after washing and putting away the dishes we used, I find El sleeping with the girls on the living room sofa. The three found a way to sleep hugged and comfortable in such a small space. At that moment, I couldn't help but imagine what our life would be like if we hadn't parted.

I know I need to take them to the room or they will wake up with some part of their bodies in tomorrow, but I also know that El loves to photograph everything she sees and that it is important to her, so I go to the bookshelf and pick up her camera. Living together for more than ten years made me a good photographer too, so I set up the camera - which is analog - so it looks perfect when El develops the film.

But watching them for a while makes me feel everything I've been avoiding for the past three years: loneliness. Since I came back, except for a few happy moments, I still feel oblivious to everything that my friends and my ex-girlfriend built while I was away. And my biggest fear is not being able to be part of it again. And there is still this shitty work at Hawkins.

I hurry to try to deflect anxiety and carry Anna into the bedroom. I go back and do the same with Karen and El. I adjust the room temperature and cover them with a bed cover. Even though the environment is familiar to me, I am not part of that moment, so I leave them in the bedroom and go to the living room, hoping that the TV will suffocate me with enough boredom to make me sleep for the rest of the night.

But it doesn't work. I can't get Hawkins out of my mind.

I give up sleeping and go to the bedroom balcony, hoping that the view from the pier will help me relax a little. I pull up a chair and sit, watching the pier until I can no longer be aware of the time I spend here.

Suddenly, I hear another chair being pulled and I see El, still half sleepy and with several strands of hair on her face, sitting next to me. I really must have stayed a long time here.

"Can't sleep?" she asks me quietly and I get kind of nostalgic with how intimate this moment is for both of us now.

"No..." I say and remember Hawkins once again. "I was thinking a lot about some things that happened today... like Alex biting Marty's ass, how bizarre. Is Madagascar ok for children?" I try to break the ice a little so I don't have to talk about what worries me now. And it seems to work well, since El is trying not to laugh out loud and wake the girls.

"Shit, Mike." she tells me still laughing "I love this movie and you just ruined it."

We stayed in comfortable silence for a while and I even forget about insomnia for a while. Calm moments, with her, have always been my favorites. Something as intimate as if we were in our bubble and her presence alone was enough to make me forget the bad things, like my fear of being oblivious to everything like my father was; of not knowing how to deal with my afflictions and trying to suffocate them drinking alcohol, as my mother did; to dedicate so much to professional projects and distance myself from everything, like Nancy;

My thoughts are interrupted by her voice, again.

"I had that dream again... With my father." Her voice is so low that I can barely hear it. She tightens the blue sweatshirt and I realize that she changed before coming here. I also realize that this coat belongs to me. "This time he heard me, but he seemed lost in a forest... It was still a cold and abandoned place. It had a weird noise too, like an animal, but I can't think of one, you know? I don't know... Kali was in my dream too," _oh, no_ "but with my teen version, you know? We were in a bathtub. So I was like... Do you know when I think of something or someone and I can find it with my mind?"

"Yes, I know." The void. It is the empty place she can access when looking for someone. A gap in the multiverse.

"Yeah... Like I'm there and watching those two moments... Kali and me in the bathtub, my father in this abandoned forest, which doesn't look like a normal forest."

I don't know what to think of these dreams. The first one she told me, seemed to me to be a mixture of fears and uncertainties. This seems like a vision.

"Astrophysics can explain..." I say trying a silly joke. El does not have much patience for astrophysics, always saying that it is “too crazy" and "complicated”. But she studies people, is there anything more confusing than that?

"No, please..." she tells me laughing "Maybe tomorrow you can explain your theory to me, Mr. Wheeler... By the way, when do classes start?"

I am paralyzed by the question. I didn't plan on talking about Hawkins now, but she has already realized that there is something wrong with me and I will not be able to escape this.

"A colleague called me today... Dr. Sam Owens. It seems that they put me on a project that will happen in Hawkins, at the National Institute of Energy..." I speak without looking at her "in the lab... I still don't know what it is about, there's a meeting tomorrow..." I am almost vomiting while speaking.  _ Holy shit _ . "I wrote an article about the multiverse in the doctoral study, so it seems that they want my collaboration on something"

She is silent long enough for me to think that something very wrong is going to happen, or that she hates me, or that she thinks she has been discovered, or that-

"Did you accept?" for the first time I decide to look at her, who has an empty look. I don't even know how to react.

"They took me out of university this semester to dedicate myself to this study, El. It was not my choice. I didn't have an opportunity to say no."

She stops looking at me for a while, watching the view from the balcony. I realize how empty her look is, how tightly she squeezes one of her hands but tries to hide it from me. I feel terrible for having ruined her night, for having talked about this before tomorrow's meeting.

I let go of the air I was holding without realizing it and lower my head, placing my face in my hands. I wish I could disappear now. I wanted to go back in time and don't talk about it. I wanted to have the power to fix our lives and erase all the bad stuff.

The more time we spend in silence, the more alone I feel. I just keep looking at the distant pier and hope that bad feeling will go away soon.

Almost an hour later, I hear El ask me something almost inaudible, but without looking at me.

"Are you moving to Hawkins?"

"No. The work is only a few days a week... and it's only two hours driving." two tiring hours, but I refuse to leave her. I will not make that mistake again.

This time she looks at me with a weak smile, a little relieved too, but I can still see the sadness and concern on her face. With some courage, I approach and hug her. To my surprise, she hugs me back, more urgently. We stayed like that for a while until she came to my lap and we were together in the same chair.

Slowly, I realize that her embrace still has the same power over me, of calm and security, of companionship and love. I always wondered if this was a gift that she never explicitly revealed to me. In the midst of that, I apologize to her for not trying to say no to Owens and this shitty work, for ruining the night with this subject.

But she undoes those insecurities with an even tighter hug and a kiss on the cheek while telling me that everything is fine. So I hold on to that as I try to prepare for tomorrow's meeting.

Somehow, I have a feeling that this project can change everything I planned for both of us.


	7. Notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you so much for reading, commenting, leaving kudos... Those are awesome! 
> 
> See ya soon :)

I didn't sleep at all the night before and now I'm trying as hard as I can not go out while I'm waiting for Sam Owens to show up. I also feel my belly growl and regret not having eaten anything for breakfast. Every minute here feels like forever. _Shit_.

I'm so pissed at this new job, they didn't even tell me what it was about or asked me if I wanted to participate. The last thing I wanted since my conversation with El at her new office was to leave Chicago or to have something that could get in the way of both of us.

At least, I think things with El are better, despite Hawkins. After our conversation last night, she took me into the living room to watch something together, in the hope that we would be able to sleep. It just worked for her, of course. And I, even though I felt the arm she used as a sore pillow, I'm glad we stayed together yesterday, even if we just hugged on a tight sofa, without kissing, sex or anything that could come close to that. Only us and the affection we feel for each other.

Earlier, while I was making breakfast for her and the girls, I felt her arms around my body, in a tight hug, and a long kiss on my back. Then, when I was about to leave the house, she gave me a folded little paper and asked me to open it only when the meeting was over or if I felt very anxious. I'm looking at this piece of folded paper right now, but I may get worse after the meeting, so I prefer to just hold the paper while I wait for Owens, hoping that something from her will help me right now.

And after almost an hour of waiting, a girl in her 20s appears, identifying herself as Owens' secretary and asking me to follow her into a meeting room.

As soon as she opens the door, I see six other men - besides Owens and me - middle-aged with their notebooks and clipboards. The projector is on and the room has a sophisticated look, which makes me think about the level of this work. It is not just innocent research.

"Mr. Wheeler!" Owens says excitedly, quite the opposite of me. "Good to see you, son. Sit down, let's find out more about our new project."

First of all, I am not that old man's son; second: I already lost all the patience I had.

"Great. I waited for an hour and I have some important things to do today," Bullshit, I have nothing to do. But El has the day off today and I wanted to be with her "so the sooner we finish, the better."

"Yes of course. I apologize for taking so long." Owens tells me grudgingly and I feel good about it. "Well, Michael, these are our colleagues from Washington. They will give us all the financial support and technology needed for the project and-"

"What are we going to do in Hawkins?" I interrupt him. I know I'm being rude and that's unnecessary, but I can't help it "I'm sorry for being rush, but I need to know as soon as possible what you are going to do... I was settled in this job, nobody consulted me. And I believe that some researchers and professors who are much more interesting than me here in Chicago, people who can contribute much more."

"Mr. Wheeler," another old son calls my name "we know that your research at the doctorate studies is magnificent. Having you with us will be a pleasure, of course. A person who dedicated so much to astrophysical studies and even helped to explain the physical concepts better to the students... Listen, I know you're angry, but you, son," _oh shit, again?_ "you will be well rewarded financially, you will have more days at home... Are you married?" _what?_

"No, but I don't think that's relevant-"

"You'll have more days off, Wheeler. We are making great progress with our studies. What we want is to find a simpler way to open new doors, you know? We want to access the possibilities of the multiverse, open a door and overcome the barriers of knowledge. Just that."

Just that? I'm sure this old man is on drugs.

"Opening doors is complicated, Sir. You should know that. First, we would need a lot of concentrated energy. And that openness puts a lot at stake. It's impossible."

"It is not." He looks at me, too serious. "We discovered a soft spot in Hawkins. Let's study it and find out what's there."

"I'm sorry, you will have to do this alone. I just returned to Chicago, I am reorganizing my personal life here and that is unquestionable for me."

"We know, Michael. We know a lot about you, your curiosity..." _the hell?_ "We have no interest in jeopardizing the proper functioning of our planet, only to improve our knowledge. NASA is involved, so is the CIA. We have security and technology, I know that you will be interested in this work in one way or another."

This time I'm not sure how to react. A part of me interprets this as a threat and another part only sees an arrogant old man imposing himself. In this scenario, I have two serious problems in the threat field and how much this group knows about me.

Problem number one: I'm sure they know about Nancy being a journalist and activist, who now lives in Dublin and investigates and publishes her articles in an important newspaper here in the United States. Her favorite subject? Expose the government.

Problem number two: maybe they know about El. That worries me a lot more. El has a direct connection with Hawkins' laboratory, with Brenner's toxic research, which was sponsored by the CIA. MK-Ultra was an ambitious project in the cold war and, even with Hopper's hard work turning her into Jane Hopper and Lucas' efforts to keep up with Jane Ives / Eleven's status over the years, I never managed to let go the of fear them finding out about her one day.

I know I'm trapped, so I choose the most logical option: accept this shit.

**\------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"It will be great to work with you, Michael." Owens appears beside me while I wait for the elevator. "We have a mutual interest in science. Imagine what we can discover there? What we can bring to our students."  
He says this to me with a strange smile and I cannot decipher whether it is genuine or false. So I just say I'll be at Hawkins on the agreed days.

Finally, the elevator arrives and I hurry to get in and out of here. But first, as the doors close, the last thing I see is Owens waving at me with a look that I can't quite identify, either.

**\------------------------------------------------------------------------**

The first thing I do when I get in my car is to call Nancy. El doesn't work today, but goes to her dance class later and I know I need to control myself before I meet her, so I choose to check on Nancy first.

When she answers the phone, I feel a little more relieved to hear her voice.

"Hi, Mike," she says a little surprised. It's been a while, but it's all my fault. The last time we met in person was when El suffered that horrible overdose in September 2006 and Nancy went to visit her at the hospital. "Are you okay?"

"Hi, Nancy. It's okay..." I don't even know how to talk to her. Talking about any sensitive subject over the phone is stupid.

"How's El doing? I heard you came back home yesterday ... Did you have a lot of sex?" _What the fuck?_

"How do you know we are living together again?" I'm so confused. "It's none of your business. Seriously, how did you know?"

"El told me. Surprisingly, I speak more to my ex-sister-in-law than my brother. But anyway. Is everything okay? Your voice is... creepy". Damn. Nancy and I were never too close when we were teenagers, but adulthood is so complicated that now we know each other too well to know when something was not okay.

"It's all right. When you come back? I need a hug." That was our code for conversations on the phone or e-mails. It means that we need to speak personally, without risks.

For years, several politicians who have been exposed by Nancy, so they were always looking for something about her or our family, to try to coerce us or destroy her image publicly.

"Maybe next month. I will hug you, soon." I feel more relieved with her tone. She will be here, soon. It's a promise. "Take care, OK? Love you."

"Love you too. Take care." I finish our call and knowing she's already looking for a flight back to Chicago.

I need to drink something and talk to someone before I freak out.

**\------------------------------------------------------------------------**

Dustin looks at me a little shocked, while Lucas doesn't seem to be so affected by anything I just said about today's meeting. My doubts and fears. We are in a restaurant in the city center and I can barely eat what I ordered.

"Dude," Dustin begins to speak slowly, which makes me a little distressed. "Dude..."

"Dustin, for God's sake!" I say with my hands covering my face.

"Look, better be in it than outside. Inside, you can follow at least part of it, outside, you can't know what's going on. Also, don't lie, it's a wonderful scientific opportunity. You like the subject." he says pointing his fork to me.

"I like it because of El. She can go there and I was always curious about it... Their intention is not just to break barriers of knowledge, Dustin."

"But he's right, Mike," says Lucas before he drinks some Pepsi. Who likes Pepsi? "Sometimes I think you forget things. We must always be one step ahead of them." he lets out a heavy sigh. "I checked everything this morning. Nothing is going on about it, I looked at everything. Nancy is a public person and her opponents are not that worrying. It's a political fight, so the main objective is to taint her journalistic career, which I doubt will happen." 

Even with both of them trying, I can't be as calm as I would like. But I struggle to eat my food and believe in them. I need to believe them.

"I just... Things are starting to look good between the two of us. I... I don't know. I'm afraid something will happen to her. I'm afraid of how she will deal with this forced project... Shit, I just wanted to go back to my old life, you know? Before Hopper was gone... I really wanted to marry her, schedule visits to the adoption center again, buy a bigger house for our family..." That's all I ever wanted.

"Why don't you focus on that, huh?" Dustin says trying to cheer me up. "Mike, think to me: you will finish this shit in Hawkins, you will receive good money. Devote yourself more to El than anything, regain what you had. Stay engaged-"

"Dustin, we just kissed and-"

"Shut up, Michael!" he says too loudly and the girl at the next table looks at us, but loses interest when Lucas looks back at her. He gives the word to Dustin. "So what if you just kissed? Did you even say to people that there was a mutual "I love you", are you crazy? Focus on El." he says it slowly to me. "Get married a year from now or whatever, I promise I'll give you the pleasure of having me as your best man. And adopt a child. You want this life together so much, don't give up now."

"But what if she doesn't want it?" I ask a little apprehensive.

"Mike," it's Lucas' turn to lecture me "you haven't been here in years. But we were and we know what we're talking about."

**\------------------------------------------------------------------------**

It's late afternoon when I get to the dance school building. I didn't speak to El since this morning, but I know that she's okay here, so I feel relieved, knowing she's safe.

I ask the guy at the reception where she is and he guides me there. I see through the glass window on the door that the studio is huge, but only El and a lady, who reminds me a lot of my mother, are there. They seem to be too immersed in the practical class, so I am content to watch them both outside.

El is wearing yoga pants and a skinny top. I can't help observing her body, her curves, the way she moves her legs, how she is very sweaty from physical effort and, _wow_. I don't know if it's because of the months of sexual abstinence since my marriage to Olivia was so cold that sex was nothing glamorous and, in the last months of it, everything was strange between us. Olivia and I were just roommates.

But with El, it was always different, with an inexplicable connection between the two of us. I never felt insecure when I was with her. Everything fit together, we were always on the same page, with the same emotional energy. So everything went so smoothly, from a simple kiss to silly conversations before sleeper, our weird pillow talks. And I loved sleeping with my face on her neck. I have never forgotten the smell of her shampoo.

I know I can't get hard here, now, because it's weird and I don't know exactly if it's disrespectful, so I turn out to look at the mural in the hallway to calm my nerves.

I see a few posters about classes for children and elderly, presentations that someone is going to make soon, some handwriting notes on post-its. This immediately reminds me of the little paper El gave me this morning. I completely forgot to read.

I find the paper in my jacket pocket, still folded as she gave me. I open it slowly and read what she wrote two, five, ten times, with a silly smile on my face. This whole time I was in doubt about what she wanted for both of us after I got back. Dustin was right, I'm kind of dumb or crazy.

She wrote “Hi, I love you. Do you want to be my boyfriend? :)” and even drew a small heart on it. _Of course, I want to_ , I think. I want to her's right now, so, when I heard the music stop, I decide to enter the room, even though I am still nervous.

The lady who looks like my mother looks at me a little surprised, but smiles at El, so I think she knows who I am.

"Hi!" I say awkwardly "I heard the song for and went in, sorry." I don't even know exactly why I'm apologizing.

"Hi, Mike!" El says. "Lucy, this is Mike. Mike, this is Lucy, my dance teacher."

"Hello, dear" Lucy comes closer and kisses me on the cheek. I repay. She seems to be someone important to El and I feel good about that. But even though she's a nice lady, I can't wait for her to leave us alone, so I can talk to my _girlfriend_. "I'm glad to meet you."

"Likewise" I say, but I think she realizes how anxious I am and starts to collect some things in the studio.

"Well, we're done here, so I'm on my way. Jane, you're going to be here a little longer, right? Do you have the key?"

"Yes, I am, Lucy. Thanks." the two share a quick hug. Lucy moves out of the room, leaving us alone. Oh God, I'm shaking.

El is anxious too. I know that because she's looking everywhere in the room, except me. When I make sure we are completely alone here, I don't wait for a second to kiss her like I wanted to do when I read the note.

She is a little surprised at first, but she kisses me back with such intensity that I almost pass out. I know we kissed before, but, _holy shit_ , I missed this certainty so much, the knowledge we are on the same page, I forget about how shitty was today's meeting, the phone call with Nancy, the lunch with the boys. The only thing I think about is us.

But some son of a bitch knocked on the door and she interrupted our kiss to scream that we are going to go out and start collecting some things on the floor. I help her, so we can get out of here as soon as possible.

When we get to the studio door, I give her another kiss, a little calmer, but she complains that we need to leave soon, so I let her go. She has such a beautiful smile that I think I fell in love even more just to see it.

"So..." she says, playing with the button on my shirt, a little shy. How silly. "Do you wanna date me?"

Sixteen years ago, when we were still in college, without satisfactory money and with no idea of what our future would be like, I asked that same question. Sixteen years later I give her the same answer that she gave me that day.

"I do."


	8. Embracing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! 
> 
> I'm so sorry it took me so long to bring a new chapter - and I confess, I'm not entirely happy with it, but that's life.   
> I just got left my not-so-good old job to go to a new and promising one. I'm anxious and excited. 
> 
> Feedbacks are always welcome, it feels like warm hugs! <3 Thanks for sticking around, see ya soon!

I feel the smooth texture of the sheets in contrast to Mike's heavy body on top of me. I don't know how we got home, it all seemed so fast. I can only think of him in the studio, smiling, kissing me, saying that he accepts to be with me again. I can only think about how he's distributing long kisses all over my body and each one seems to wash away part of the weight that I have felt in recent years. At the same time, those kisses fill me with something I have not felt since everything started to fall apart for me: happiness.

So, when he makes me lose control of my body for the first time tonight, I _know_ that I am getting closer to being free with him again. It's also the first time, in over three years, that I feel completely vulnerable and safe at the same time because there is nothing else between us. _Nothing_.

Latter, I feel complete again and I don't know if I sigh because of love, pleasure or relief when I feel him into me, but I know that this time, we are on the same page.

Mike takes me on his lap, hugging me so tight, with his face on my breast. It's when all my senses allow me to feel everything at the same time: the sound of our bodies meeting at our rhythm; the warmth of our act; the perfume mixed with the natural scent of his body, which I always loved so much; his hair completely wet with sweat; the sounds he makes every time my body moves over his; the friction of his chest hair on mine; his hands, his mouth, his tongue, his entire body. I can feel everything.

Then, when he makes me lose control of everything a second time and I do the same with him, I feel his heavy breath against my face, our foreheads glued together. His eyes are closed, but he's smiling at me, such a big and beautiful smile, that I instantly know it's because of that smile that I won't allow myself to lose him again.

**\--------------------------------------------------**

**December 24, 2004**

I hold Mike's hand tightly while we wait for Karen to open the door and welcome us for at her home for Christmas, the first one without my father.

The feeling that someone is tearing something away from me is so intense. It has lasted almost two months and I still don't know when or how it will go away, so I hold as much as I can on Mike because I know he can keep me up, even if I don't have the strength for it.

Karen opens the door and, once again, I get a look that says “ _oh dear, I'm so sorry_ ”, even as she tries to hide it. She hugs me so tightly, that I know anyone who shows up here tonight will not receive a hug as intense as mine.

"I'm so happy you two are here..." Karen says staring at me while hols my hands "El, I cooked something just for you, I hope you like it, sweetie."

"Thank you, Karen," I say to her, awkwardly, and begin to wonder if coming here today was a really good idea. Not that I don't like Mike's family, they are great. Karen is like a mother to me, just as Nancy is practically my sister. The only person I'm not close to is Ted Wheeler, but he is so oblivious to everything in his own house that I don't care that much.

Karen takes us inside the house, warm and full of Christmas decorations, which makes me feel that she has done even better this year, perhaps to make up for my father's absence. I turn off those thoughts about him, in part because I can't take it anymore. I feel suffocated by it.

Mike notices and asks quietly if I'm okay while he takes off my coat. I know I should thank all the gods for having him, but I just can't seem to tell Mike everything I feel since Hopper left: abandoned, lonely, like I am drowning little by little in a deep and dark sea, that there is a weight that prevents me from doing anything... Mike always wants to embrace everything I feel, so, right now, my biggest fear is that he feels the same way I do.

Then, when I look up, he's still waiting for an answer. I just smile weakly and say an "I'm fine" accompanied by a quick kiss on his lips. It has been like this for the past two months and, a few days ago, I realized that he no longer believes in me, but is giving me the space I think I need.

**\--------------------------------------------------**

**April 05, 2008**

I watch Mike sleep so deeply, the complete opposite of me. I can't sleep. I'm in the middle of a lot of emotions right now, so I can only watch him sleep and think about how much I want this to last forever.

His lips are parted, his hair is spread over his forehead and on the pillow. The view is almost the same as I had when we were together for the first time sixteen years ago, but I can see some differences between that day and today. He's letting his beard grow and I notice some white strands on his chin, others are hidden on his hair, others on his chest hair. There are several and this makes me think about the time I lost without him, not being able to notice these details.

The last three years have been hell for me.

When I first met Olivia in 2006, she had visited me in rehab. As soon as I saw her, I thought about how beautiful she is: dark skin, long hair, an incredible presence and, above all, a _normal_ person. I remember being ashamed of myself when I found her. I thought she was coming to say horrible things to me, for keeping her husband with me for almost two months, as if there was nothing else in his life but me. But in opposite to everything, I felt relieved.

Olivia didn't judge me or complained, much less have a fit of jealousy for what happened, she just held my hand. " _Don't give up, Jane. He needs you much more than me.”_ She said those words to me before leaving and, I know it's selfish, but I felt hopeful because I realized I still had a chance with Mike one day.

He wakes up a little groggy and interrupts my thoughts at once with a confused look and an innocent face.

"Lost between time and space?" he says, running his fingers over my hair. "Time" I answer and he smiles to me. We should get a "super nerdy couple" label or something.

"What about it?"

"I was thinking about the time I wasted without you here." he looks at me for a while, and I feel a little nervous because of the lack of response, until...

"You are so corny..." he makes fun of me and I give him a little punch on his arm. I think this is another thing that I missed a lot: silly games. "Corny and beautiful..." and comes at me, covering me with his body, in a protective embrace. "Don't think about it now, okay?" he tells me while distributing light kisses on my neck. "Try to get some sleep."

I agree with him, but I can't sleep, and I suspect that's why he doesn't sleep either. We ended up just holding each other and looking at the view from our bedroom window until dawn. I know there are things I need to talk to him about both of us as soon as possible, our separation three years ago, how I feel about Hawkins. At the same time, I don't want to ruin our moment right now, so I just enjoy it as much as I can until I need to leave for work.

**\--------------------------------------------------**

**December 24, 2004**

"Michael, can you help me in the garage?" Ted's voice is a surprise in the kitchen. He barely spoke during supper, but I noticed his looks at me at the table. Mike follows him to the garage, and I am only with Nancy's company, as Karen appears to have slept on the sofa even after a few glasses of wine.

"Don't you find it interesting when my father remembers that he has children?" Nancy tries to start a kind of tragicomic conversation with me. "Especially when he remembers Mike."

"I don't think he's like this on purpose, Nancy." I don't even know why I'm defending Ted Wheeler. It was always very clear to me that he only tolerates me, also because of my father. The situation got a little worse when they found out that I can't get pregnant.

"Oh, I think he does," Nancy says as she finishes drying the dishes. "But ignore it, okay? He's an idiot..." I keep in silence and it seems to bother her. "Sorry about that... You just lost your dad and I'm here complaining about my-"

"It's okay, Nancy-"

"No, really, I'm sorry, I just... How have you been?" I **hate** this question. 

"Well," I swallow dry as soon as she finishes the question, and I concluded that I can't convince anyone anymore. "I'm fine."

She observes me for a while and I just know that I will not escape this time. Mike is calmer and less insistent than his sister, so I know she will suspect my answer and won't let it go.

"You don't look well... Isn't lying about how you feel a bad thing? I remember you used the super professional tone to tell me that once..." I remember that day. Nancy had just ended a relationship and decided to pretend she was fine as if nothing had happened.

So I decided that if I'm going to have this conversation with someone, I need some help, so I grab a glass and fill it with wine. "You know you can talk to me, don't you? I know you have Mike and he's an angel with you, just you," I laugh a little bit of that. True, Mike becomes the most patient person in the world with me "But you can count on me too. Talking is important and you know much more than I do."

As I think about talking to Nancy, I hear Mike's loud, angry voice from the garage and go over there, worried about what may be going on between them. Nancy tries to accompany me, but I ask you to stay in the kitchen if Karen wakes up.

I know Mike and Ted were never close, so it came as no surprise to me when Mike first told me that he considered Hopper as a father, the example of a person and father that he would like to be one day.

As I approach the garage, I can hear Ted criticize Mike and say one of the most painful things I've ever heard.

"You are a disappointment to me, Michael. Even more now. You will never wake up, will you? What does this girl offer you? Or our family? You can't even continue our family."

"You are sick!" I hear Mike say and I know he's trying to control his anger.

"She's sick! Are you incapable to see how your wife is doing? She's drowning, Michael, and she's going to drag you along with her. You're going to drown with her, can't you see that?"

I don't know how long I stay listening to it until Nancy comes. I know she asks me something, but I can't understand her words. Somehow, she goes to the garage and the three of them stay there for a while, but I decide to leave. Minutes later, I realize that I'm in the bathroom, but I have no idea how I managed here. I'm staring at myself in the mirror, my reflection seems to say the same words as Ted.

I'm going to drown Mike with me.

**\--------------------------------------------------**

**April 06, 2008**

"Let me do it!" I get scared with Mike suddenly appearing in the bathroom, while I try to apply some makeup before leaving for work. After much reluctance, we got out of bed and started organizing breakfast and getting ready for work. 

It's been a long, long time since I felt so good with these small routine tasks.

"Do what?" I ask him. I usually wear very little makeup, but Mike seems so excited about the idea of getting me ready for work that I let him do any crazy stuff he wants. "I think you just need the lipstick. Can I?" He asks excitedly.

"I only have two lipsticks, choose one."

"Ok, let me see..." he looks at them with a confused expression as he chooses one. Obviously, he chose what I rarely use.

"Mike, that tone is too dark, it doesn't match..."

"I liked this." He is so determined with that "Come on, let me test it on you... It's been so long since I saw you wearing a sexy lipstick and all."

I begin to laugh at his silly reasons, but there's a little bit of truth to it. Since my father died, I have lost a lot of my desire to take care of myself. After hearing Ted Wheeler's horrible Christmas comment, I pretty much gave up on myself. For a while, I thought that in doing so, Mike would give up on me too.

I push those bad memories away with Mike putting lipstick on me and he does well. Very well. I feel like someone else when we look in the mirror afterward. For the first time in years, I find myself happy and safe again.  
"See? Super hot. Your patients will be in love... Good thing you date me." he says in my ear and I start laughing at him again. I can only smile since yesterday when he said yes.

"I'll tell everyone that I have a boyfriend now," I tell him "and that I love him very much." I kiss his neck a few times and leave some marks of lipstick on his skin. I like it.

"Wait here!" he asks me and runs to my - our - room. He comes back shortly with my camera.

"We only have one shot on the roll, so it needs to be ours... New memories." Mike hugs me from behind and takes a picture of our reflection in the mirror. "I can't wait to see this photo."

I already gave up on getting to work early and I believe he thinks the same, so the only thing that comes to my mind is to kiss him like we don't have any more commitments today. I don't want to get out of that bubble of love and security that he provides me.

"El?" His sweet voice takes me out of my thoughts.

"Yes?"

"I love you."

**\--------------------------------------------------**

**May 06, 2008**

"No, no, wait!" Dustin practically screams to get everyone's attention. "Are you two dating? For a whole month? And you didn't tell us anything?"

_ Yes _ , I think. Mike and I have been dating for a month. In the meantime, I feel that we have met again. When he came back, we still had this big feeling of guilt between us, but we managed to work on it when we talked in my office, after Will's birthday, the day he came back. Then we found ourselves again when we slept together for the first time in three years.

In the last month, Mike's things arrived from New York and my apartment became ours again. Sometimes I feel like he hasn't changed a bit in the last few years, and that happens when I find him sleeping with his face between books, or when I wake up in the middle of the night after a few more dreams with my father - it never seems to go away -, scared and confused, but safe as soon as I feel his body so close to mine, or when I find his towel hanging where it shouldn't be... All the simple or big moments remind me that this time, we are together and I don't I need to hold on to the memories of that September, when I was at my worst and he stayed by my side, abandoning everything he had in New York.

"Yes, a month and you didn't notice? I thought you were the smartest one, Dusty" I play with him, unable to hide my laughter because his reaction is a mixture of indignation with surprise and happiness and the face he makes is priceless.

"I knew it!" Max screams. Obviously, she knew before and will brag about it. Max saw us kissing a week ago and threatened to tell everyone ahead of schedule. That's why we're here, in my living room, at a pizza and wine dinner. - I can finally talk about it, thanks! I caught these two swallowings each other last week, it was horrible.

"And you didn't tell me?" Lucas asks indignantly. "Okay, I already imagined that something was happening, since Mike stopped being an asshole these days and-HEY!" Lucas is hit by a napkin ball in the face, in a perfect shot by Mike and the two enter a mini-war of napkin balls, being interrupted by Will, who was always the most normal person in our group. He gets up and pulls Mike by the shirt until we are close enough for a trio hug that is so strong that we fall to the floor.

"I love you!" he says smiling "I love you guys so much. Thanks for coming back, you deserve everything. Mike," he grabs Mike's face and looks seriously at him "let me be the best man at your wedding. Please!"

"No!" Dustin gets into our embrace "I am the best man. Accept that, Byers."

Suddenly, the weird hug between four people becomes the weird hug of six when Max and Lucas throw themselves between us, in a heated argument where only Max wins, since I wouldn't choose someone else to be my godmother.

Moments like this, with the people I love the most, fill all the empty spaces, until there are none to the bad memories in me.

This chaos of happiness that they bring me is what saved me every time.


	9. Sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry, it took me too long. Hopefully, I'm going to update more for the next two weeks since I'm doing home office and have more time, get less tired...
> 
> This coronavirus thing sucks, but it's important to STAY HOME if you can. We need to take care of each other. Hopefully, it'll be over very soon.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter as much as I did. I love Kali and I missed her in ST3. I hope they find a good storyline for her in season 4. Kali is interesting, not evil or hero, just a girl who had a very bad life and just need some love.
> 
> Btw, I'm sending love to you! Feedbacks are welcome. Xoxo.  
> Ps: sorry for any mistakes.

I hear my phone ring as soon as I get into the elevator and to my surprise, it's a call from Kali. I haven't heard from her in almost a month. The last time we talked was at a café close to my house when she said she wanted to talk to me, a few days after Mike came back home. Kali was never happy with the idea of Mike coming back to live with me and I have the impression that she liked it much less when she heard that we are together.

And that's one of the reasons it took me so long to answer the phone. It's not that I don't want to talk to my sister anymore, I just have the feeling that I'm going to hear the same thing as always about Mike and me, about my powers, about my choices... After years I'm finally at peace with myself. I don't want to hear her disapproval today.

Especially today.

Nancy came back from Dublin that afternoon and must be home with Mike by now. I would've loved to go with him to pick her up at the airport, but the schedule was so tight, and I would never leave my patients aside. So the only thing I want is to get to my car and go home, hug my sister-in-law and rest with my boyfriend.

But I can't ignore Kali's call after more than a month without news of her. I answer the phone.

"Hi, Kali," I control myself to not ask where she's been all this time. I know very well that pushing Kali would be worse. "It's everything okay?"   
"Hi, Jane." she rarely calls me El, saying that it's not my real name and she does not feel comfortable calling me that. "I'm fine... I wanted to see you today, is that ok? In that bar, near your house."

I shouldn't visit bars. I had serious drinking problems years ago, which led me to make the worst decisions of my life, like leaving Mike, giving up on myself and following all of Kali's inconsequential actions until I found myself in a hospital bed after a cocaine overdose and a mix with whiskey. But that was some time ago... And yesterday I had wine with friends at home, in the celebration of dating-almost-engagement, so I think it'll be fine.

"Kali, I... Nancy came back from Dublin today and they are waiting for me at home," I realize that she will interrupt me, so I hurry to finish "but I want to see you! Are you already at the bar?"

"Yes, I am here. I'll be waiting for you."

I can't answer before Kali hangs up. That kind of attitude from her makes me so frustrated. I don't want to change Kali, make her become someone else, stop doing what she likes... It was never about that. The only thing I ever wanted is that she can have what I had thanks to my father: a family, safety, an opportunity to study and work with whatever she wants... After everything we've been through in Hawkins' lab, I just want Kali to be happy after all.

I never quite understood what Kali works with. Seems like it's co-working with a friend (who I suspect is also a girlfriend) artist. They travel together sometimes, and the job seems to give her enough money to be comfortable. 

As soon as I get to the car, I texted Mike that I should be home a little later, that I will meet Kali, but I omit the location. The last thing Mike needs to know - via text messages - is that I'm at a bar with my sister he hates.

**\----------------**

I feel the heat from the bar as soon as I open the door. It is a little empty today, perhaps because it is still early. I look at my watch and it's 6 pm and make a mental note that I need to be home by 7 pm at the latest.

It doesn't take long for me to identify that the song that is playing now is _Where’s My Mind?_ my Pixies' favorite song. Interestingly, I find Kali sitting on one of the high stools in a bar that plays... Pixies. The whole scene is exactly her style and almost nothing of mine. I look at my own outfit, a brown dress with buttons on the front, a short sleeve, a pin from Finding Nemo that a patient gave me, a pair of grimacing shoes. I look like a boring aunt while Kali is the definition of a rocky and cool aunt.

I sit next to her without saying anything for a while, hoping that she will start the conversation and I will find out where she's been for the past month. But she continues to act as if I am not even here. 

"I haven't heard from you for a month..." I begin a little upset by her reception. "Suddenly you call and-"

"Did you look out for me?" she replies interrupting me "I don't remember receiving a phone call from you..."

I don't know how to react to her answer, because I can't pretend and say that I looked for it last month. Even though it was a busy month for me, I could have looked out for her.

"I'm sorry," that's all I can think of "it was a crazy month... But I didn't stop worrying about you, Kali."

"Okay, forget it." she tells me a little harshly "Are you and Mike getting along?" of course she would ask about Mike and me.

"Yes, we are... It's been great. He's stuff has arrived from New York, so we had to fix the apartment... It was a mess for a while, but everything is already organized." I can't help the smile on my face. I can't keep a neutral expression when I remember or talk about Mike. "Nancy came back from the trip today, will be staying for a few days..."

"Nancy? Oh... I like her. Unfortunately, I didn't meet her in a good time, but she was very polite to me. Mike should learn from her."

I don't have time to answer because of the _barman_ , who approaches us and asks what we want. Kali orders another shot of whiskey.

"Aren't you going to drink anything?" She asks me suspiciously.

"I don't drink."

"Seriously?" She has a strange expression when he asks me, as if she is hiding something from me. "I went to your building yesterday, I saw your friends arriving excited for the party... Pizza, wine..." she smiles wryly "I'm not part of that, am I?"

"You are not because you don't want to," I whisper and it's true. Kali has never been interested in approaching my friends.

She doesn't answer me right away. She is silent for a few minutes, probably because she knows I'm right. Kali rarely cared about participating in anything that involved Mike or my friends. At first, I worried about the distance she imposed, but I realized with time that there is no point in pushing her.

"Mike's going to work at Hawkins, Jane." I'm surprised to hear that. I have no idea what and how she knew about it. "In the lab. For what? Do they know about us?"

"He was invited..." I don't want to tell you that Mike was practically pushed on this project. "It's research about physics, something of his work. You shouldn't be worried." I feel like the most hypocritical person in the world as soon as those words come out of my mouth. I worry about Mike at Hawkins, even though the project hasn't started yet.

Kali gives me a sarcastic smile when I stop speaking and I almost leave the bar. I hate it when she acts like this, especially with me.

"Do you think he... would help me if they found me?"

"My God... Of course, he would, Kali."

My irritation with her distrust is so big that the only thing I can do is take her glass of whiskey and drink it all at once. The amber liquid runs down my throat like fire, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. I regret it immediately. I shouldn't even be here.

Little by little, I feel ashamed for my careless attitude. I spent four months in a rehab center, after almost a week in the hospital because of an overdose. It's been almost two years and I still remember Max crying next to me and Mike's empty gaze on that hospital room door.

So I promised myself that I wouldn't do that to me, let alone to them, again.

"He wouldn't do this for me, he would do this because of you." Kali breaks the silence. "But I appreciate it. I'm sorry about..."

"It's all right, Kali."

She looks away for a while, shaking her glass and I hear the clink of ice cubes. I know there is something else she wants to tell me, but I am afraid to pressure her and everything will go wrong. Living with Kali is like stepping on eggs in the most delicate moments.

"It's just... You're so... free, that's the word, free. You are free with them, your friends. You have a life with them, you have fun... I just... I'm not part of that, you know? I wanted, Jane, a lot, but I don't fit in and it hurts me sometimes. I just wanted to be a part of your life without the judgments of others."

I don't interrupt her because I realize that, right now, she needs to say everything she has been avoiding for some reason and I need to listen. I don't know what motivated her to open up about it now, but I know that the best I can do is listen.

"Since that day... I never apologized for that-"

"It wasn't your fault" I quickly reassure her. What happened was just my mistake, and I hate it when Kali feels guilty about it.

"No, Jane, I was with you and I offered you drugs that day... I knew it wasn't what you needed, but I thought maybe I could help you forget everything at least for a while... It worked for me."

"Kali... I'm fine now, okay? Hey, look at me" I hold her arm, trying to get her attention, and I see her face. For the first time in years, I see Kali crying. Immediately, I wipe her tears with my hands and decide that I need to convince her. "Kali, listen. I promise, nothing of that was your fault. I know that things have not been friendly between you and Mike, or you and my friends, but I promise I will work this out, right? Believe me, please."

She stares at me for a while, looking me in the eye, and I can almost feel the pain she holds inside. So I hug her as tightly as I can, hoping that she'll feel safe with me, that she believes in what I promised her.

"You are my sister, my family," I reassure her. "I don't blame you."

"Mike hates me, Jane-"

"Look at me!" I release our embrace and hold her face firmly."

"Will he tell them about me?" she asks, unsure. I've never seen her like this before."

"Never." Mike would never do that to her. And I know that I must convey this certainty that I have for her. "I need you to trust each other."  
I hug her again, stronger than before because I want her to feel safe with me. I want you to know that she is part of my family.

**\----------------**

I park in front of Angela's house, Kali's friend-girlfriend-partner. I never met her in person and it makes me realize how distant we are from each other, especially after our conversation at the bar.

"Are you sure you don't want to come to my house?" I ask her, even though I already know that the answer will be negative.

"I'm sure. I won't" her answer is dry and straight, I don't even get a look from her. "Angela and I arrived yesterday morning and still haven't unpacked my suitcase..."

"Oh, ok" I don't believe this, but at least now I know she was traveling with Angela in the last few weeks, so I'm relieved. "Can you look at me? Just wanna tell you something."

She looks at me and, to my relief, her expression is lighter than when we were at the bar, but I still notice the smudged makeup traces and her tired look. I wish things would be simpler between us.

"I love you so much." I hold her hand tightly and she returns it with a tight hug.

"I'm sorry for what happened at the bar, I just... When I found out that Mike was involved, I thought the worst... And I feel distant from you since he came back. I'm sorry."

"I feel distant from you too... And, Kali... I know that you and Mike have problems with each other, and I can't and won't choose one of you, but I ask you to trust him... He would never do anything against you." I suspect she still doesn't believe me completely and I don't know what to do.

"I trust _you_." she says quietly and removes the seat belt.

"Thank you... Kali, how did you know about Mike going to Hawkins?" I can't imagine how she got this information.

"Some friends," she answers me hurry. "I have to go... I'll call you later."

I don't have time to say goodbye, so I hear the car door slam and I see Kali go towards Angela's house.

As I watch her leave, I feel exhausted, and the expectation of meeting Nancy and Mike is diminishing, being replaced by mental exhaustion. But I don't regret meeting her, not at all. At least I know now that I need to break this wall that exists between us.

**\----------------**

I hear their excited voices as soon as I open the door. Everything is so different from my meeting with Kali a few minutes ago. Mike greets me in a tight hug and I take advantage of the closeness and warmth of his body to release the tension. He gives me a quick kiss when he releases our hug and puts a lock of my hair behind my ear.

"Hi." His smile... "I cooked for you today."

"Oh, really?" please, let it be spaghetti bolognese. "What did you do?"

"Spaghetti bolognese. It will be ready soon..."

"That's why I love you" I give him a longer kiss. 

"Are you guys going to ignore me forever?" Nancy says aloud and I run to hug her. I always liked Nancy, she is one of my favorite people in the world.

She welcomes me with such excitement that I quickly feel like the most loved person in the world. I wonder if Kali has ever felt this way.

"I missed you! I could hardly believe it when Mike said you were coming back to visit. How long will you stay?"

I notice the exchange of glances between Nancy and Mike, but I think it must be a silly thing between the two.

"I don't know yet, did not even buy a return ticket!" she tells me, laughing. "Maybe I'll stay here and ask you two to adopt me, I don't know..."

"No!" Mike screams from the kitchen and Nancy rolls her eyes and I end up laughing at the whole situation.

"Shall we talk outside?" she asks me and I accept, warning Mike that we will be on the balcony.

As soon as we get there, I feel the cold breeze hit my face and, once again, I remember Kali. Her sad and distressed look, her agony kept for I don't know how long. I come back to reality when I hear Nancy's voice.

"I think your meeting with Kali was not the best thing, was it?" She asks me quietly, as she closes the glass door that divides the living room from the balcony. "I noticed..."

"You always know what I'm feeling, right? There's no escaping from you." I answer laughing a little. There is no way to escape from her, nor her brother. "I just... Since Mike came back, we're distant from each other. She didn't speak to me or showed up for a month and I didn't look out for her either... I just realized that today. She was not on her best too..." I think about speaking about Kali's concern with Mike going to Hawkins, but I don't know if they already talked about it. "I don't know, I was worried about some things. The point is that I distanced myself from her in the last month and I didn't want that. Now I feel guilty..."

"Did she try to contact you during that time?"

"No..."

"So...? Look, you both were distant. It happened, you don't have to feel bad for that, okay?" she says this while hugging me sideways. "Just try to meet more often, you know? Let's go out together, me, you, Mike and Kali-"

"Mike and Kali? Together?" I bring my hands to my face and I realize that I'm nervous about this idea. "She basically told me today that she doesn't trust Mike, to the point of thinking that he would talk about her to the government... I'm so frustrated, I just want them to understand each other."

"So I think that we can all go out together might be a good idea. They will have to learn to deal with each other, El. Kali needs to be less passive-aggressive and Mike needs to stop blaming her for what happened."

"She feels responsible for what happened to me... And I know that Mike has a share of guilt in that. It was horrible when they met at the hospital."  
I remember that day well and I never want to see Mike act crazy again.

"Yeah, that sucked... But, listen, I'm going to fix this, arrange something nice to do... Until then, talk to him."

"I will... Thank you. I missed you." She hugs me tighter as we hear Mike opening the door, coming towards us. He hugs me too and I stand between them, feeling almost complete.

Later, we are all having dinner with Mike's spaghetti and he looks so proud and happy to have his sister here, that I feel much better around them. Of course, I would love to have Kali here with us too, but I will follow Nancy's idea and try it little by little, one day at a time.

Now, I know I need to enjoy this moment together more than ever. Mike starts going to Hawkins three days a week, starting next month and I still don't know how to deal with the distance and the fact that he's in the only place I'm afraid of, the Hawkins National Laboratory.


	10. Rage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WASH YOUR HANDS  
> DON'T TOUCH YOUR FACE  
> STAY HOME!!!!!!

"I swear, it was the worst date of my life!" the loud sound of El's laughter effects completely on the mood of our home, and I'm glad she seems more relaxed than when she arrived. I'm not sure what happened before with Kali, but I saw her talking to Nancy. One of the things that makes me happy is seeing them together. "He invited me to watch a superhero movie and that's all, nothing happened... I mean, not even a kiss? Two days later he invited me out again, I gave him a second chance and he arrived 40 minutes late and brought his mother! Who does that?"

"You only date weird men, Nancy..." she shows me the middle finger while taking another sip of beer.

"El, stop laughing. What if Mike did that to you the first time, huh?" my sister asks jokingly. I would never make El wait 40 minutes on the first date.

"He would be a dead man, for sure! I'm glad he's perfect for me." She hugs and kisses my neck. "Hey, I loved our dinner, it was great. I also loved laughing at Nancy's bad dates, but I had a busy day... I need to take a shower and sleep, so..."

I get a longer kiss this time. Her lips are warm, in contrast to the cold Chicago night and I enjoy this as much as I can. I haven't discussed with Nancy about Hawkins in detail yet, so I cling to that moment, which unfortunately doesn't last long because of my irritating sister.

"Oh, come on! Please!" she speaks out loud to annoy us. "Not in front of me."

"Ok, Nancy, if you want a kiss too just tell me, you don't have to be a pain in the ass, come on!" El says, amused. They exchange kisses on the cheek before El leaves the balcony, saying she'll come to kiss us goodnight before going to sleep.

Nancy and I are in silence for about five minutes, watching the pier and the street movement. It is a pleasant evening, even if it is cold.

I notice that Nancy comes closer, sitting in the chair next to mine, where El was a little while ago. I can't postpone this anymore, so I prefer to speak at once.

"I'll have to work in Hawkins' lab, starting next month. I can't refuse because I was assigned to this project and I felt coerced in the first meeting. I think they know about El or they know about you. El doesn't know what I suspect, only that I will need to go."

There is a silence between my sister and me for a while and I can almost hear the footsteps of those walking down the street. It may be too much for Nancy to think about. Okay, I'm still trying to accept all this and not go crazy, especially when El is around.

"Who are they?" Nancy asks me quietly as she looks at the balcony access door, checking if El is coming back.

"Researchers, government people, CIA... It is a research about the multiverse, parallel reality... how to access these places..."

"Places that El accesses with her mind?" This point of view scares me. "Mike, I think it has very little to do with me..."

_Oh, fuck._ I bury my face in my hands and I suddenly feel sick. _Shit_. What if they already know about my connection to her? What if it was purposeful to put me on this project? Holy shit-

"Mike!" I startle when I hear Nancy's voice. She holds my face in her hands and looks deep into my eyes. "Whatever it is, you're two steps ahead, right? We're all. We always have been."

"What if they already know they're just using me? What if they take her, Nancy?"

"They won't. You need to stay calm, understand? Calm down, Mike. They may not know about her, much less about me. Maybe it's just about you, maybe they want your brain to make God knows what." Nancy holds my face more firmly than before and I feel more secure, welcomed, even if it is not an affectionate or sensitive act. "We're all in this together, right?"

"Ok," I say, with a weak voice. Nancy hugs me tightly and, little by little, I feel less anxious.

"You are the smartest person I know, so you need to stay that way. Stay calm, think before doing anything related to this job... Fear sucks, I know, we are blinded by fear... and you can't let fear consume you. Your girlfriend is a psychologist, talk to her when you feel anxious or afraid."

"I don't want her to know that I suspect it, Nancy. I don't want her to feel exposed or insecure, I can't do that to her."

"So don't be explicit... Mike, the best part of you is your feelings." I am surprised. This can't be the best of me. "Before you start complaining, let me finish, okay? Ted Wheeler is a horrible father and horrible husband because he acts like nothing is happening to or around him. He feels nothing for our mother and I think he has no feelings for us other than that disappointed face that he has all the time."

Her face is a mixture of anger and sadness and I hurry to wipe the tears that run down her face.

"Mike... you feel everything. And I know and I've seen how shitty it is sometimes, but you feel everything. I know how you feel about me and that makes me feel good, just as El knows how you feel about her. It is good, it is very good to know when we are loved and you carry that. It's the best in you. Do you know what it means?"

"That I'm not like Ted Wheeler?"

"Exactly. And even if something goes wrong or our paranoia is real... El will still feel and be sure that she is loved and protected by you. That makes all the difference."

**\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

I walk into the apartment with Nancy by my side. We haven't had a conversation like we just had in a while, and it helped me to think better about how I should proceed from now on with this journey to Hawkins. I need to protect El, above all. The scenario I imagine, where they discover that Eleven/Jane Ives is alive, is the most dangerous now, and being part of this project can help me manipulate their actions.

But I don't want to focus on that tonight. It has been a little over an hour since El said she would take a shower and go to sleep, but I haven't seen her since she left the balcony. I kiss Nancy goodnight and go straight to my room, where I think El is.

When I open the door, I see her sleeping, but still using her towel and her hair looks damp. She was exhausted and probably couldn't resist the bed after the shower. I lock the bedroom door and the balcony access, as it will be difficult to put nightwear on it in that state of deep sleep she is, I don't want her to wake up or feel cold tonight.

I take one of the thickest blankets we have and remove the damp towel and cover her body. I think it will warm her up. I also take the opportunity to put her nightwear close to her head, just in case she wakes up at dawn and wants to get dressed.

I kiss her forehead and take the opportunity to admire my girlfriend a little more. The conclusion I have is that she's perfect, there is no better word. And as she sleeps, I notice that she still has a tired expression on her face, as if her body and mind are still trying to relax. I run my fingers through her hair for a while, hoping that it can calm her unconscious mind and that she can rest soon.

I get up after a few minutes and go to the bathroom I need to shave my bear and take a shower too.

Facing the mirror, I watch myself for a while. Some features of my face are so similar to those of my father that I need to force myself to remember that I am not and will _not_ be like him. _Never_.

**\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

I wake up with the light coming through the curtain in the bedroom. Thank God for being Saturday, so I don't need to hear the irritating sound of my alarm. I take the opportunity to stretch myself a little, but careful not to wake El, who is beside me.

I turn around to find her and, to my surprise, is she already awake and crying? In a rush, I approach her, trying to understand what is happening.

"Hey, hey... What's wrong?" I put my hand on her face and then on her neck, but it doesn't seem to be a fever, so I think she may be in pain or something. "What happened?"

She takes my hands away from her face and I feel completely lost. "I just had one of those dreams again, with my father... that's all." I don't know if I believe it because she seems much more nervous than before. I try to wipe off the tears from her face she let me. "I'll be fine, Mike."

Her weak smile doesn't reassure me, much less hear her say that she'll be fine. It was what I heard most come out of his lips right after Hopper died.

"Do you want to talk about it or...?" she takes a deep breath and looks away from me, so I start to think of other ways to relieve the tension. "Do you want to eat something first? I can bring your breakfast coffee here, tell me what you-"

"Shhh, calm down, slow down." I may have shown all my nervousness to her as she interrupts me by placing her hand on my lips. "I just... just listen to me, okay?"

El gets up and sits on the bed, leaning against the headboard. I notice that she is wearing one of my shirts, the one that I usually wear at work; her hair is messy, the way I always thought it was beautiful, but her look is such an abrupt contrast. She has a tired, distant look that makes me suspect that she barely slept that night and did not wake me up.

"Well..." she is nervous, I can tell by the way she moves her hands. I move closer to her, placing some loose strands of her hair behind her ear, in the hope that it will ease her anxiety. "Remember that I was dreaming about my father lost in a place that looked like here... but it wasn't here? I can not explain..." 

I confirm with my head and move closer, hugging her. I notice all the possible signs of nervousness in her face.

"I saw you. But it wasn't now... you must have been 14 years old. I saw you in that strange place that I always see my father and you were looking for him. Then I saw Kali, she was with me... I was looking for my dad too, but your voice distracted me the whole time.

She is hiding something from me. I don't know if it's just part of the dream or something that happened for real.

"So... did you know me in that dream?" I ask calmly, hoping it will calm her down too. "I wanted to meet you at 14, I think it would be your first little boyfriend, huh?"

This time, I see a sincere smile on her lips and I feel more relieved. But I know that there are still details of this dream that I still don't know about.

"I think so..." El approaches me, lying against my chest and I kiss her forehead. "In the end, I lost my father and you too. Kali was no longer there when I got out of the tank and-" she stops, but I realize that this is exactly what she hides from me. _A tank_.

"A tank, El? An isolation tank?" I ask her, still keeping a quiet voice, but she doesn't answer me right away, she prefers to look at her hands a little, then at a picture of us in the wall. It's a photo we took in California almost ten years ago.

"Yeah, it was the lab tank..." she tells me after a while, but her voice is almost inaudible.

"What did Kali do there?" I ask curiously. Kali seems to be everywhere.

"I don't know... I was just on my side."

El hasn't had these nightmares in a while, I think she hasn't told me about these episodes in a month. Antidepressant dosages are normal - and she takes very little these days. My participation in this dream is new since it only involved Hopper and Kali.

Kali. They met last night and El looked more tired than usual when she got home, but I hold on to not talk about it now.

"Maybe... Have you been thinking a lot about my trip to Hawkins?" I ask, a little awkwardly. I'm afraid this whole thing about Hawkins is affecting El.

"Sure, wherever you want.

She hugs me tight, in a way that I would dare say strange too. This worries me as much as the feeling that she is hiding something from me and I can no longer keep calm wondering what may be happening to her since the meeting with Kali yesterday and the return of this sudden dream.

"Hey, honey... If you have those dreams again, you can wake me up, okay? Even if you don't want to tell me about the dream itself, I stay awake with you. I'm here with you, you can talk with me whatever you want, you can trust me."

When Hopper died and El went through a slow process of self-sabotage that I couldn't see well, I thought she didn't trust me anymore, that I was losing my place in her life. What scares me now is that I know there is something that she hides from me and I see how much those dreams are affecting her. I'm afraid I'm going back to those days.

She's looking at me now, her eyes still red from crying, her fingers holding the little silver necklace she gave me a couple of weeks ago and I don't take it off for anything.

"Kali knows you're going to Hawkins." _what?_ "I don't know how, but she does." she tells me this very suddenly and it takes me a while to understand. How does she know that?

"What? No one outside should know that! AND-"

"I know!" El cuts me, frustrated, and leans her face in her hands. "She called me yesterday, asked to meet her..." I notice she takes a deep breath and looks away from me. Somehow, I think this conversation with Kali involves what she is hiding from me. "I met her at the bar nearby, you know what it is."

"Did you go to a bar? El-"

"Mike, let me speak! She was already there and asked me if I could meet her there. I went. She told me that she knows about you working at Hawkins and wanted to know if you would hand her over to the government. I said you would never do that."

I feel lost, I don't know what to do now. I would never hand over Kali, not only because El would never forgive me for it, but because no one deserves to go back to that place and be treated like a lab rat.

"How did she find out, El?"

"A friend of her... She just said it was a friend." I try to think of all those old people in the government who participate in the alignment meetings. None of them seems to be someone that Kali would keep in touch with. It makes no sense.

I start looking for my cell phone around the room to talk to Lucas as soon as possible. I feel more frustrated with each passing second and I can't find my fucking phone.

"Mike!" El almost screams for me to get my attention. "You won't tell them about her, will you?"

"I'm not like her, okay? I don't fuck with anyone's life!" I retreat as soon as I stop speaking. _Shit, shit, shit._ This is exactly the kind of thing I shouldn't say now, or ever.

The silence in our room is so strong that I can hear his slow breathing, which scares me the most. This silence remains for seconds that seem like an eternity because I know the seriousness of what I said.

_Trust_. That feeling that El doesn't trust me comes back to my mind.

I watch as she slowly gets out of bed and comes over to me, never failing to look me in the eye. I can feel her disappointment in me.

"Your fucking phone is on the little table, next to my bed, where you left it," she says low but firm. "Don't you ever talk to me like this. Never." her index finger hits my chest hard, while she speaks.

"El, I'm sorr-"

"We'll talk later."

_Shit_.

**\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

My father always said that I can make things worse. Today I'm doing all the bad stuff he always said to me. _All the bad stuff._ And that is why I am in front of her door, waiting for her to answer me. I doubt she is not home, I am sure she is listening to me punch that door.

The only thing on my mind right now is how Kali found out about Hawkins and how dangerous it can be for El.

I was right. Kali answers and our mutual disgust is a good morning we get along with.

"What do you want here?" I don't answer immediately or I hope to be invited, I just go enter her house and take a look in case someone else is here. I can't find anyone. I look for her radio and turn it on, at a high volume, in case of any listening. Unfortunately, the music programmed the worse possible, but it will do. "Hey, hey, what the fuck, Mike?"

"How do you know I'm going to Hawkins? Tell me!" - I almost scream at her.

She looks at me, incredulous, but doesn't say anything, quite the contrary, she laughs. Holy shit. "You break into my house-"

"I knocked on your door!"

"YOU BREAK INTO MY HOUSE and still want satisfaction from my life? A friend told me, he works at the university where you work and saw you there."

"Who's your little friend, huh? How does he know about Hawkins?" I will lose my patience with her today.

"It's none of your business."

"Kali, I'm not going to baby you, I'm not your sister, okay? You shouldn't know about Hawkins, so I need you to tell me immediately who told you about this job and what you know."

"Aren't you a fucking scientist or whatever? I thought you were smarter. You know my friend, but you're stupid and don't see anything in front of you, do you?"

And that is exactly why it is so difficult for me to forgive you for what happened. She's always playing mind games with me, being sarcastic at the wrong time. I can't accept this anymore.

I also don't know what makes me punch a mirror that is on my side until there nothing left to be broken and it scares me. I am not recognizing myself today, my lack of control over this. All of my actions this morning are the opposite of what Nancy advised me last night.

_I need to remain calm and I cannot let fear destabilize me._

I bend down to pick up the broken glass and throw it away in the kitchen trash. I repeat this process a couple of times until I notice that my hand is soaked and bloody.

When I look at Kali, I realize that she must not have moved a muscle, but she doesn't seem scared of me. She looks like she knew I would do something stupid.

She's always expecting I make a mistake and this drives me crazy. I fell into her game again, like the day in the hospital and I ended up being dragged out of the building by a security guard, in a rage of anger at having found her there, in the hall, after getting high enough she didn't even realize that her sister was almost dead in the WC.

"I'm going to Hawkins to protect your sister. If you love her as much as you say, do something good for her. At least one time."

I don't expect an answer from Kali, I just leave her house and go straight to my car. My hand hurts and I start to think that I lost more blood than I imagined. I manage to start the car and go to the hospital.


	11. Not a Superhero

I feel the slight twinge in my right hand, it is already the fifth since Max started the suture, and there is still one left. That's what happens when you punch a mirror.

But talking about what happened this morning is more painful than the six stitches in the deepest cut I got. I am grateful that Max is at the hospital today and has time to listen to my outbursts and save my hand's life.

"You need to come back next week for an analysis... If everything is fine, I can get the stitches out. It doesn't hurt, so you don't have to worry. Do not make an effort or wet the dressing, okay? I'll send you a message with the complete list of hand care."

"Yes, ma'am."

Max laughs weakly at me, but there's still a hint of disappointment on her face and I can't blame her. At the same time, I still feel the least bit of lucidity in me for looking for her today.

"I used to think you were boring when you started dating El in college. Wow, you two were boring... unbearable and so cheesy." we laugh about it together because it's true. El and I were always together, or writing notes, giving gifts, talking about each other. Max was never romantic, she would never understand. "I always knew you were the right guy for her, it was always clear to me."

"I don't know, Max... She was furious... I was rude to her..." I start repeating the scene in my mind. I stayed in the room for a while, not knowing how to act after what I said. When I left, I saw a note signed by Nancy saying that they headed out together to get some breakfast. "There's still this with Kali..."

"Yeah, that was dumb..." Max answers me softly and I see how she turns her wedding ring on her finger, which she always does when she is thoughtful. "But that doesn't make you a monster..."

Max gets up and sits next to me on the stretcher and I feel relieved by her presence and also by what she just said. If Max, of all people, does not see me as a monster after today and has not proposed to castrate me, I am minimally happy.

"I don't know what happened to me... I just felt so angry at everything. Having to go to Hawkins, not knowing what's going to happen there or here, not knowing who knows and told Kali about this project... I don't want them to find out, Max."

"I know, I understand. If I were in your shoes, I think I would do the same. Look-"

Her phone starts to ring loudly and our conversation is interrupted. I don't even know where mine is, probably in the car. Max answers the call, but she doesn't move away from me. It doesn't take me long to realize that I'm the subject of the conversation.

"Ah, Mike? He hurt his hand and met me here at the hospital and- El, calm down, everything is fine. He cut his hand, it was deep but small, I already took care of it. He's fine. His phone... Mike, where's your phone?" _Shit_. I have no idea how to explain what happened to El. If Kali didn't tell her everything already. I tell Max that my cell phone must be in the car. "He left it in the car... Yes, it would be good for someone to come and pick him up, he can't drive with one hand. Ask Nancy to come over while you go to the pharmacy and buy the medicines I will send you by message, okay? Yes, he is fine. I'm fine too, thanks for asking, I love it when you show that you love me and care."

I laugh weakly when she shows me her cell phone and I see that the call has ended.

"Your girlfriend is rude, you two are perfect for each other. Nancy is coming to pick you up... Your shirt is full of blood and you shouldn't be driving for the next few days."

_Oh shit_ , I think. _Today is not my day._

"How is she? Upset?" I ask, tense. El and I only fought once, when she broke up with me back there. Before or after that, we just discussed simple things like the taste of the pizza or movie to watch together. She always won. "I don't even know how to explain it to her."

"Tell the truth. The whole truth, including your worries, fears... You know, I never imagined that Lucas and I would be together for so long... I didn't even imagine that we would have two beautiful daughters. I think the best thing between the two of us is that we know what we feel because we communicate. Lucas is my best friend and I am his best friend. Just..." Max takes a deep breath and takes a while to speak again and I take the opportunity to think. El _is_ my best friend too and I know that I am hers. "Since you two broke up, you've been repressing yourself so much... you left, got married, barely talked to us... That horrible day needed to happen to El so we can talk again. Just... don't suffocate yourself, Mike."

I accept her advice with affection and thank her for helping me. Max gives me a big hug and I feel better after that.

**\--------------------------------------------------------------------**

Nancy always drives fast, at the maximum allowed limit, and today was no different. What torments me is her silence. She just asked what happened and I answered shortly: outbreak of anger, Kali's mirror, someone - I don't know who - knows more than should. Nothing has come out of her mouth since then, and I think I would rather spend those 25 minutes in the car listening to all the lectures that my older sister could give me.

When we reach the building's garage, she doesn't turn off the engine and I get tense when I feel her gaze on me for the first time since we got in the car. She gets the urge to say something once or three times until she can start the conversation.

"You need to talk to and understand each other. She is not angry, I know you are afraid of it, but she is only concerned now. I'm going to leave you alone for a while, okay?"

"Nancy, I'm sorry. I don't want to be like our father, or what he thinks I am." And I don't. My father is a clear example of the man I never wanted to be: a coward, distant, indifferent.

"No, you're not like him, or what he thinks. You are like our mother, but a thousand times better." Nancy takes my good hand and squeezes it a little. "It's okay, I'll bring pizza for lunch. Pizza makes everything better."

**\--------------------------------------------------------------------**

"My God, Mike! Why didn't you answer the phone?" I can barely get in the house and I already feel her arms around my neck. She tells me a lot of things, but I don't hear very well because my mind just seems to register her embrace, her smell, her warmth. That's all I can feel right now. "Come here, you need to take off your clothes."

El pulls me by the good hand and takes us to the bathroom, asks me to take off my bloodstained clothes while she goes to our bedroom, probably to get clean clothes. I keep thinking about how I'm going to explain what happened at Kali's house.

I am surprised when I calmly look at my clothes, I did not imagine that it would cause such damage. I think I'll need to wash the car seats well later...

I leave my clothes in a corner and hear El come back from our bedroom. She also brought two boxes full of pills.

"This one is for pain and this one is anti-inflammatory, these are the drugs Max asked me to buy... I'll leave it in the closet, but you need to take this one now." She says, handing me the anti-inflammatory pill, which I swallow before she brings me the glass of water. She frowns at the scene and I smile shily.

I sit in the closed toilet while I think about what to say to El, who sits on the floor, with her back to the wall, facing me. I know she is waiting for an explanation of not only what happened to my hand, but why I acted that way with her. I take a deep breath before I start and see that my hand is shaking a little.

"I'm sorry about today... For what I said, how I said that... I shouldn't, I know that I didn't mean to... I was nervous and scared, that's all."

"Scared of what?" she asks me in a sweet voice and I finally look into her eyes.

"Of losing you," I answer. I need to be honest with her now, as Nancy and Max advise me. "Since I went to the meeting about this work... I don't know, I'm afraid that they will find out about you and use me, I'm afraid of doing something wrong and you end up exposed, of not being able to protect you... I feel lost El."

I feel her hands in mine and she takes more care with my injured hand. At this point, she has already realized that I am so anxious that my hands are shaking.

"When you told me about Kali knowing about the work, I was afraid that someone else would know about it, I was afraid that they would discover you... I don't know, I just thought about it. I wanted to find my cell phone and talk to Lucas, ask him to check your documents, I don't know..." I squeeze her hands tighter and she gets closer to me, so close that her chin rests on my knee.

"I went to see Kali..." El turns to me quickly and pulls away a little to look me in the eye, surprised, but still holding my hands. "She... We argued, she didn't want to tell me who told her about the job... I didn't want to argue, I just wanted to know and she was joking at my face, she said that I had invaded her house and, since I'm so smart, I should know who told her... I lost patience and hit a mirror that was on her wall.

This time, El bends down and rests her forehead on my knee. She lets go of my hands too, which makes me more anxious about what's to come. I know she must be disappointed in me, _I am_ , I wouldn't judge her for that. I hate myself now for losing control.

"I was desperate, I started to think that someone else knew about you and I felt humiliated by her, ok? I just wanted things to go back to the way they were, El. I hate myself for what I did and I owe you an apology for everything, but I couldn't take it anymore to ask her to answer me and-"

"Mike, stop. Please, stop." she gets up slowly and holds me tight and I sink my face into her chest while I feel her hands in my hair. We held each other for a while, until she holds my face, making me look at her. I feel her hand go over my face and I realize that I cried a little and she is wiping away my tears.

She gives me a long kiss on the forehead and it helps me to be calmer. I think I was on the verge of an anxiety attack as well.

"I forgive you. I know you, I know you feel bad for what you did. It's okay with me... You still need to apologize to Kali about the mirror and she needs to apologize to you too. But we will solve that later, okay?"

_Okay_ , I think. I can do this, I can apologize to Kali. Now I feel more relieved that El forgave me too. I just want things to work out.

"Mike, about Hawkins, neither you nor Kali, let alone me... We don't know what they think or know about Jane Ives. Do they know that we are together?" I shake my head in response. They don't. "Ok... pretend I don't exist when I'm with them. You and Lucas continued to look out and I'm covered, right? Ives is dead, isn't she?"

"Yes, everything is the way your father left." I answer. Lucas has observed almost every day any sign that El's identity has been discovered, but there is nothing new.

"So it's okay... maybe it's just anxiety." She is still holding my face as she speaks and I support my chin on her chest. I tighten my hug a little more because I really like the feeling of security she brings me. "Mike, look... I know you want everything to be the same as before... I also want it sometimes... but it won't happen. What we can do is make everything better from now on, but we can only do it together, okay? You don't have to hide things from me and suffer alone... don't do that, please."

"I just want to fix things, El."

"But it won't, nobody can do that. I love you so much, and I know you always want to fix things, go the best way, make everything perfect... But life is not like that, is it? You have no control over everything, love. Nobody has. Nor is it your responsibility to save the world all the time, my love."

I bury my face in her chest again and inhale her scent, caress the skin of her back. I feel lighter now, I can breathe better. I think Nancy and Max are right, I feel everything and I embrace these responsibilities for myself and it suffocates me sometimes. El does the same thing, especially when it comes to Kali.

I take the opportunity to understand that I can feel exhausted and that's fine, but I still want to save the world - my world - all the time. El is my world and I will do my best to protect her, even if the terrible enemy is a spider or cockroach that she is scared to death.

"Am I still your hero when I save you from a disgusting beast?" I ask to lighten the mood and receive my favorite smile.

"You are." She kisses me, a warm and soft kiss at the same time. I bring her closer until she is sitting on my lap, without stopping our kiss. I take off the shirt she's wearing - which is mine - and run my hands down her back, the skin soft in contrast to the bandage on my hand.

El breaks our kiss and gets up, pulling me by the arm to the box to shower together.

I watch the water run down her body for a while, but I can't resist and hug her, leaning her back on my chest and kissing her neck, then her shoulder and back to her lips again.

Our synchronicity is so delicious, from the kisses to the sounds of our bodies together, from our breathing to the sensations we give each other, to know the right place, the right rhythm. It is _so_ good that I almost forget that I need to take care of the dressing, but El is more careful than me and remembers taking care of me. She always remembers.

I am so absorbed in our sex that everything that happened before seems to disappear from my mind and my only goal is to feel her body react to mine. She gets lost in me first and I need to make a double effort to hold her onto me without forcing my injured hand, but it doesn't take long for me to get lost in her too.

I can only hear our heavy breathing and the sound of the water on us for a while until she recovers faster and looks me in the eye.

"Reconciliation sex is the best." we laugh together and I kiss her again.

"It's the best. And "I miss you" sex is good too." I say, thinking about the first time we've been together since I came back. "But fight or staying apart sucks..."

"Yeah ... I don't want to fight again, okay?" she asks me with a serious expression. I don't want, either.

"Yes, ma'am."

We stayed together a little longer and decided to finish the bath. We've been spending water for a long time.

Nancy arrives at the apartment with two pizzas shortly after El and I have finished getting ready. El offers to put on a movie to watch while we eat and I see my sister wink at me, in a sign of partnership. I blink back in response.

We had lunch together on the sofa as if we were still teenagers enjoying the house in the absence of parents. El shows us the photos she revealed of the last camera roll and hands me one, in particular, the one I took from the two of us in the bathroom, on our first day of dating after I got back. I put the photo in a frame and place it on the bookcase, along with others that we put back, going through our college days until today.

I only remember my phone at the end of the day, after taking El and Nancy to their rooms, since they had slept in the living room in the middle of another movie that we tried to watch in the late afternoon. I see that Nancy brought it when she arrived with the pizzas and left it on the kitchen table.

I look through the calls I missed, five from Nancy and eight from El, but a text message catches my attention. I don't have the number saved, but I recognize the ending. It's a message from Kali.

I open the SMS and I need to read it a thousand times until I'm sure of what she wrote to me.

"I heard it from Sam Owens."


	12. What if?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! :)
> 
> The cover photo is a frame of a scene from the movie Annihilation (available on Netflix) with incredible Natalie Portman, who is my fan cast for this story (Millie is incredibly similar to her o.o). Obviously, I edited the image to fit the context of a scene from this chapter ahhahahha
> 
> Enjoy the happy moments because, if I managed to write these scenes until now, it's a miracle (I'm terrible writing cute things, I guess...) From now on, the story will be very sad and tense. :/
> 
> Ps: Natalie Portman and Michiel Huisman are the fan cast that I created for the original story, but you can use them as a reference for this fic, Natalie as El and Michiel (with short hair) as Mike. :)
> 
> Wishing everyone the best. Stay safe! <3 
> 
> sorry any mistakes

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_Sam Owens._ I don't know how much time I spend staring at his picture on my computer. It has been two days since Kali's message and as soon as I did read it, I took a deep breath and controlled myself enough not to contact her, at least not for now. The anxiety seemed to eat me alive, but I keep trying as hard as I can to stay calm and think about my alternatives.

 _Maybe the internet could help me understand Dr. Owens_ , I tough, but so far, I haven't been able to find anything concrete about his connection to Kali.

Owens worked as one of the leaders of the Hawkins Department of Energy between 1998 and 2004, more than 10 years after Martin Brenner's death. His responsibility was to address innovative energy supply projects in the USA. Just that. There's not one single thing that would connect Owens directly to MK Ultra.

So here I am, staring at a photo of Owens on the university website. I think about giving up looking for some information and trying to sleep until I hear footsteps coming from the corridor. It's Nancy.

"Can't sleep?" I ask. She seems in a good mood for someone who just woke up.

"I was on the phone. I met a guy today at the pizzeria, we have a date tomorrow..." she says with a smirk.

"Oh, is he cool?" I ask curiously. My sister has always had a more intense love life than mine. "I hope it's not another bad date..."

Nancy shows me the middle finger and I laugh. It's nice to have my sister back, even it's just for a little while. She plans to return to Dublin in three days.

"It's two in the morning, Mike. What are you doing awake?" Nancy asks me when she comes back from the kitchen with a glass of water.

"This man called me once. He told me that I was in this job at Hawkins. He's a professor at the University of Chicago, my colleague, but I don't know him well... He told Kali that I'll be working at Hawkins, starting next month." I explain to her, showing Owens' photo.

Nancy appears to be as confused about this connection as I am, even though she knows very little about Owens. It seems very unlikely that he and Kali would know each other in any way.

"What do you know so far?" she asks me, more attentive than when she got here.

"He worked at the Laboratory between 1998 and 2004, apparently the subject was just energy, nothing connected to the MK Ultra..."

"But he knows. It's impossible to work there and not know, it doesn't make sense... That doesn't mean he worked directly, but he knows what happened there." Nancy sits next to me and rests her head on my shoulder as we look at the screen of my notebook. "What do they want there? Something with a multiverse, right?"

"To understand better the multiverse... Find another dimension."

"Another dimension? How many are there?" Nancy never liked physics.

"As far as we can see, four: height, width, depth and time. But there may be more. Have you ever heard of string theory?"

"No, I hate physics." we laugh. Sometimes I hate physics myself. "Mike, you won't find an answer to your question on the internet. I'll find out how Kali and Owens know each other, okay? I may not be able to do it before I leave, but I can continue from there."

She's right, I won't find anything about Kali and Owens on the internet. Leaving this investigation with her also gives me more time to think about my other options.

"Thank you, Sherlock." I kiss her forehead. "I don't know what I would do without you."

**\-------------------------------------**

"Babe, what flavor?" I get surprised when I hear El's voice very close to me. "Where did you go?" _Hawkins_ , I think. The date of my trip is getting closer and closer, and I seem to get lost in my thoughts sometimes.

El and I decided to make the _girls' night_ different, so we took Karen and Anna to the cinema, watched the Narnia movie with that new prince and now we are at the ice cream shop near the pier.

"I was choosing the flavor," I answer. "I don't know which one to choose, can I take yours?"

"No." she answers me a little indignantly. As much as El loves me, ice cream is something she doesn't share with anyone." I'll order one just for you." she says, kissing me on the lips. We need to behave more today because of the girls.

"What if strawberry ice cream tasted like chocolate?" Anna asks excitedly. These girls have quite an imagination.

"Ew, Anna!" and Karen is outraged by the possibility. "What if the chocolate ice cream tasted like waffles?"

"Wow! I would eat it." El seems excited about it and I smile at the scene. El is amazing with the girls, you can't dispute her favoritism, not even Will would get the first place. "Waffle is the most delicious thing in the world, without a doubt."

"Oh really? I thought you liked something else more." I decide to play with it just to make her embarrassed now. And it worked, her face is extremely red and she is completely embarrassed, even though she knows that there is no chance the girls will know what I'm talking about.

She gives me a scolding look and I can't stop laughing and Anna says that I suddenly went crazy.

"He's crazy, Mom always says." Karen says laughing. Silly.

Being with them helps me to forget a little about Hawkins, the questions about Owens and Kali that prowl my mind day and night, missing my sister... Nancy came back to Dublin a few days ago but has still not been able to find out anything relevant about Owens other than what we had already found on the internet, much less about her connection with Kali.

Even full of questions, I don't want to have to meet Kali anytime soon. 

Before leaving, Nancy made me go to Kali's house with a new mirror and an apology, which she ignored.

 _I need to focus on the girls again_ , I think. I want to forget this fog in my mind a little.

We passed a few small stores near the pier and Karen continues to play "What If..." with El. What if the world was inhabited only by kittens? What if it started raining hot dogs? What if Uncle Mike hadn't returned?

This question catches my attention. Anna, Karen and I look on curiously waiting for El to answer.

"I would go after him." she says with a cute smile and my heart melts a little. She was cold earlier, so she's wearing my sweatshirt over the cute green dress she chose to wear today. It's perfect in her own special way.

The night was good between the four of us. The girls managed to convince me to go on the pier's Ferris wheel, which is beautiful at night. 

We ate some food - that Max would kill me if she saw it, so we made a pact and swore to keep it a secret - we took several pictures with the camera that El brought and I can't wait to see the result. She has digital cameras at home, but she likes the wait with the development of the photos she takes on the analog. It gets more special, she says. And it does.

Max left the shift early, so she ended up going to our home to pick girls up just before midnight. We still talked for a while before saying goodbye. I help Max take the sleeping girls to the car.

"Something's bothering you, isn't it?" Max asks me in the elevator as we go down to the building's garage, me carrying Anna and Max carrying Karen. Is my distress so evident?

"Hawkins," I answer and Max understands me immediately. "It's three days a week, two hours to go and two more to come back... I didn't want to leave El here, Max."

"I know... but we're here, you know. She'll be fine, we'll all be fine."

We get the girls in the back seat of the car, making sure they're safe for the twenty-minute ride home. Thank God we wasted all the sugar we consumed in the park.

Max gives me a tight hug and thanks for staying with the girls and I hope to see them safely leave the building's garage.

I return to the elevator hoping that I can relax a little more tonight and in the coming days.

**\-------------------------------------**

I feel her suddenly getting out of bed and it makes me stop staring at the ceiling. I don't know how long I stayed like this, kind of lost like I wasn't here. I look at El trying to understand why she got out of bed so suddenly, but I feel calm when I see that she is just dressing again. But still, why?

"Don't you want to sleep without it"? I ask. El rarely gets dressed again after we have sex before sleeping.

"It's raining a lot... and it's cold too." she answers me indicating the window, which is closed and I can see the raindrops hitting the glass. I hadn't realized it was raining until now.

"Come back here," I take her hand and pull her back to bed. "I can warm you up. I will do a better job than panties and a shirt."

She laughs at my horrible joke and lies next to me, on my right arm, and I take the opportunity to pull her closer to me. We stayed like that for a while, just with the street lighting that passed through our window. The rain is calm, as is the night and our embrace.

El plays with my hand for a while and I notice something I haven't seen in years: the ring. We were never officially married, but we wore "promise" rings. We both liked to feel the weight of that object on our fingers.

 _Funny_ , I think. We were never really married, with a party, blessing of priests or signed papers, but we used a promise ring. I was married - signed papers - to Olivia, but I never used my ring. Somewhere in my mind, the idea made me sick, because it felt like it was vanishing El away of my life. In a way, that's what I tried to do.

I take her hand and run my thumb over her finger with the ring. We stay like this for a while, remembering our life before, with the sound of soft rain against our window, until El interlaces our fingers.

"I met an old lady these days, I think she is like eighty years old, so small... so fragile..." she tells me quietly, looking at our hands together. "I had just got our photos from the camera and was in line to buy some rolls of film... There was a picture of you, one that you took in front of the mirror without me knowing, that night we went out to dinner with Dustin and Will, remember? I was looking at the picture, you were so beautiful... The lady saw it and said: “you are very in love with him, aren't you? Your husband is lucky!" I laugh at her attempt to imitate the voice of that lady and I kiss her cheek. "I did not want to tell her you are my boyfriend and not husband... I feel like we are more than that, you know? More than husband and wife, lovers... I told the lady that you are really lucky."

"I have!" I answer quickly. I'm really lucky to have her with me. "I understand you, El. I also feel that we are more than any definition word." I say and get a sweet kiss for that.

"When we went out with the girls today, I took my ring, but I didn't know why... I kept it in my dress pocket until you gave me your huge coat, which covers my hands. I put my ring later and I realized when we got home that I didn't want to hide it from you, I just wanted to feel it on my finger, you know? And make it look more like family time, me, you..."

"What if I had seen it?" I ask. I know that El is sad about the direction of the conversation and I feel bad for seeing her like this.

"You would ask me and I was going to lose that feeling, you know?" 

"I understand." I know how it feels, to escape a little from our reality, to be able to imagine ourselves living what we always dream together. I love the girls, I love having them around. It is the closest experience to parenting I have. I think El feels the same way.

The silence returns between the two of us until I lose track of how long we've been like this. I still have my hand clasped in hers, it still rains outside, she still plays with my fingers, I realize that there is still sweat of our sex in her hair and probably still in mine too.

I pass my free arm around her body, hugging her tight. I have the impression that she wants to say something more, but she is holding on and God knows why. I whisper that I love her, very quietly, as if it were our own secret.

"What if... what if I could get pregnant?" she is **so** hesitant as she asks me. I huh her tightly before answering.

"I would love you the same way I love you today." I say and she gets less tense, but only a little.

"What if I had no powers?" she asks me curious.

"Nothing would change between the two of us, El." I reinforce and try to improve the mood a little by returning the question.

"El, what if I were a woman?" I ask, trying to ease the tension. It works. El turns to me completely and holds my face tight.

"I would be lesbian," she says to me with an expression so serious that I start to laugh. "I swear, I would fall in love with you even if you were a nerdy scientist crazy about quantum physics."

"Wow, this is low!" I say pretending resentment.

I revenge by tickling her until she starts to cry after laughing so much and needs a break to breathe better. Seeing her like this makes me feel so good, but my mind insists on bringing Hawkins back.

"El?" I call her when I see that she has already recovered her breath. "What if... I don't go to Hawkins?"

"Don't go, stay here. I hide you!" she says with immense certainty. "What if you find a hot scientist and forget about me?"

I start to laugh wildly at her stupid question, and it's her turn to come up and tickle me, insisting that I answer.

"Answer me! What if she is very, very hot?" there is no way to take her question seriously when she's laughing so much. My plan to start with stupid questions has worked, after all.

I hold her arms tightly and turn her on the bed, staying on top and giving no room for her to react, I give her an urgent wet kiss, just to mess with her enough not to think about this bullshit, even if it's just for fun. But it's me who gets messed up as soon as I feel her tongue invading my mouth too.

When I feel her legs around my waist, I suddenly stop kissing and she gives me a surprised look.

"I'll be very busy there thinking about _my_ hot girlfriend, don't worry!" I say and lie back on my side of the bed, staying in the position before. I start to feel tired of the whole game. El must understand because she hugs me and lays her head on my chest.

"It's good to know that the hot scientist doesn't stand a chance with you..." _No one would_ , I think. El comes closer, lying on top of me and burying her face in my neck. "I will miss you when you're there."

"Me too... but I'll come back every day. I promise."

We held each other for a while, and I can almost sleep because she's caressing my hair. I start thinking about the paths we can take together after everything is over in Hawkins, I think about the plans we had before Hopper's death. I don't know if I want to wait too long, I know I want to be with her forever.

"Marry me?" I ask, but I don't get an answer. She fell asleep, her face hidden in my neck, so she didn't hear my request. The bad thing is that I don't know when I will have the courage to ask again.

There is nothing I can do now, so I am content to have her with me and try to sleep better tonight.


	13. Someday

It's past 11 am when the alignment meeting is finally over and I can leave the university. If I don't get traffic, I can go home, get ready and go straight to Dustin's house, where they are preparing a lunch party with _the nerds_.

I pack my things in a hurry, saying goodbye to my “colleagues” at the same time. We discussed working hours, the hotel we should stay in if we need to sleep at Hawkins (something that I will avoid at all costs) security instructions and signing a confidentiality statement... I’m probably being watched by now.

When I'm in the elevator, I hear Owens' voice asking to hold the door. I barely manage to prevent it from closing, but I get it and allow him to enter.

Nancy and I still haven't discovered new things about Kali and Owens' connection, but it's been only five days since she returned to Dublin and I need to remain patient, which hardly works when I realize Owens is looking at me with a fucking weird smile on his face. I try to smile back and thank God for not being able to see my face right now.

"Mr. Wheeler, how about we have lunch together today? There's a restaurant nearby it's great!" he tells me excited, as always.

"I can't, sorry. I'm going to lunch with someone..." I reply. It's not a lie, so...

"Ah, lunch with girlfriend or wife?" He asks me with a friendly expression. _Pathetic._

"Friends. I don't even have a girlfriend, let alone a wife..." _liar_. "And you? Married?"

"Ah yes, married for thirty-five years, believe me?" I pretend to be surprised by this information that doesn't interest me at all. "So you are a free bird?"

_My God._

"I think so... I recently got divorced and I'm not looking for a relationship, especially now."

"It makes sense..." he says, but his eyes are suspicious, which makes me imagine a thousand things. I would give anything to know how close he is to Kali and what are the chances of him knowing that El and I are together.

Happily, we reach the ground floor and Owens and I go out towards the parking lot but, before saying goodbye, he holds my shoulder with one hand and I am frightened for a moment.

"We'll lunch together at Hawkins, then? There are only two days left. There's a lot there that I would like to show you. See you soon! Have fun with friends!"

I don't have time to answer as Owens leaves as soon as he finishes saying goodbye to me, going in the opposite direction of my path. I ignore the bad feeling this conversation gives me and get in the car.

**\------------------------------------**

"Look, Doctor Wheeler!" Dustin speaks announcing my arrival. "Did you bring beer to make up for the delay?"

I reply by showing him my middle finger and pretending to be annoyed. Despite my tantrum, I was late for thirty minutes and brought the beer as an apology. I take the bottles directly to the kitchen, as I now know Dustin's house well after several get-togethers for no specific reason (Dustin is our special _chef_ and he loves it).

"Where's El?" I ask curiously. I thought I would find her as soon as I walked through the door.

"Right here!" she's excited and welcomes me with a tight hug. As we separated, I take the opportunity to admire her before beginning to greet all my friends. El is wearing that red lipstick that I love, simple jeans and a basic white shirt under one of my “work” shirts. She has this habit of wearing my shirts whenever she can and I'm not crazy to complain, because I love her smell on my clothes.

I kiss her lips and then I take the opportunity to talk to everyone. Dustin, Will and Brad, Max and Lucas - who took advantage that the girls are at a science fair at school.

I can't help remembering meeting them when I returned to Chicago, on Will's birthday, which now feels like a thousand years ago.

When I arrived, I didn't know what it would be like to be close to my friends after leaving them, going back at a difficult time and then leaving again. I felt out of place as if I didn't know them anymore.

Now, what I feel is quite the opposite and I know that much of this evolution is because of El.

Lunch helps me forget about today's meeting and Owens' weird behavior, as well as the invitation to have lunch with him when we're at Hawkins. 

Dustin is, without a doubt, the best in the kitchen among us all and ends up being the winner of a competition that only he participated, having one of his super chic pan - which Max took in the kitchen - as the big trophy.

"Seriously are you going to use my pan as a trophy?" Dustin asks indignantly.

"Of course! It came directly from France and was paid by yourself." Max explains as Will tries to hold the pan and laugh, posing as a stage assistant. Brad has already given up and started laughing wildly at the whole scene. "I know it was a great idea, you can thank me later, Dusty."

El takes a picture of this hilarious moment with our friends. It is a good afternoon in their company, I would like to feel light like this all the time.

"So now that the awards are over and Dustin is the best chef among us, Will and I would like to announce something," Brad says. "The adoption process has ended, so... Will and I will be Peter's parents, officially!"

I need time to understand fully. Will and Brad will soon be parents, after years of fighting - even in court - to be able to adopt little Peter together. I am so happy that they can make this dream come true, this time officially.

Lucas pulls a group hug and Will thanks us more than a thousand times for the support during that time and I feel extremely happy when he includes me, even though I spent a good part of that time away from them.

I learned that Will and Brad were going to court for the right to adopt when I spent a few months in Chicago with El, almost two years ago, in that episode that I don't like to remember. At the time, I was sad to know that they would have to fight for that right but happy that they decided to fight together for that dream.

"When are you taking Peter home?" Dustin asks. "You know I plan a Star Wars marathon with Peter Parker as soon as he arrives, Lucas has even separated the films!"

"He comes next week, on Wednesday!" Will says and I feel sad.

"Oh, Wednesday?" I ask. "I'll be in Hawkins next week and the trip will tire me so much... I am unsure about my presence at a welcoming party..."

"You know, Peter needs to spend a few days at home, with his parents, to get used to it little by little... we can have the party over the weekend." El explains using his “psychologist voice”. "And the girls will be able to participate too."

Will and Brad agree and we ended up talking about Peter's welcome party, but we convinced Dustin to wait a little longer to introduce him to Star Wars.

Dustin and I go to the kitchen to get the beers - and juice for El - for a toast to the new family, when I hear El's phone ring and she picks it up, walking away. I take the opportunity to talk to Will.

"Hey, Daddy!" I give him a hug and a pat on the back. "I'm very proud of you. You will be great parents! I promise to be a great uncle too." this last part I say a little shy. Will, Lucas, and Dustin are like brothers to me.

"I know you will, thanks, man. And you and El, huh? Are you thinking about something special?" He asks excitedly.

"I asked El to marry me..." Will is surprised, but I hurry to explain. "But she was sleeping and didn't hear it, so..."

"And you didn't ask again? Michael, for God's sake..." He pats me on the forehead and I take his hand away from me. "I thought you were already getting the documents to adopt too."

"Yeah, so... I want to marry El when I finish this whole thing in Hawkins, the same for adoption, you know? I think we would need to find a bigger house for our family and-" I stop speaking as soon as Will makes a sign to shut up.

"Babe, it's Nancy." El hands her cell phone smiling. I think they talked a little bit earlier. I move away from the room and go to the kitchen.

"Hi Nancy, how are you?" I don't know much to expect from this conversation. I look at my phone and notice that I haven't even received a call from my sister and it's odd that she called El directly.

"I'm fine. You know, about that movie you showed me, the lead was that girl." I understand the subject of this conversation. Nancy can't speak openly because someone can be listening to us, so I look out for a paper and pen to write down what she is going to say, as she taught me.

"Oh, not her friend?" I say.

"No, the friend paid bail a month earlier, remember? When she was arrested for drunk driving." _holy shit_. "But I only managed to understand that part of the film... Do you know when the new season of Lost comes out?"

"No, I stopped watching." ok, I never watched Lost, but I understood that that last sentence was a complement to the information she had to give me." It's quite confusing..."

"It is. Well, I think I'm going to watch that movie again, maybe I'll understand the ending. Take care, OK? I love you."

"Okay. I love you too."

We said goodbye and end the call. I look at the napkin where I wrote down what Nancy told me over the phone and try to connect the dots.

The lead is Kali and the friend is Owens. Last month... El and I came back a little over a month ago and I don't remember Kali around during that time... On bail, I deduce that Kali may have been arrested for drunk driving, which is entirely possible from her.

So, so far, Kali was arrested sometime in April, so she spent almost the entire month without showing up. Owens paid the bail, but why?

I decide not to waste too much time on this and save the napkin in my pocket. Perhaps Lucas can help me confirm this theory.

I go back to the living room and see that El e is holding some drinks, a soda, and a beer. She smiles as soon as she sees me and gives me the beer.

"Did you talk to Nancy?" She asks, curious, and I return her phone.

"Yes, she's fine," I reply, but I choose not to speak the truth about what we talked about. "she wanted to know about a series, but I stopped watching."

I feel bad for lying to El about anything, but I think it's necessary now, at least until I understand what is going on.

"I'm happy for them," she tells me excitedly, but I know, deep down, she's thinking about what it would be like if we both made this announcement. "they'll be amazing parents."

"They'll, darling. And we'll too, someday." I notice that your eyes shine brighter than anything as soon as I finish talking. And her huge smile warms my heart too. She hugs me tight and I take the opportunity to breathe in her sweet smell.

She will be an incredible mother. Someday.


	14. Hawkins, Indiana.

"Mike, wake up. I made you breakfast." El's voice is the first thing I hear when I wake up. I look at the clock on the nightstand and it is already 5:00 am. June 10, 2008. I need to leave at 6:00 am and arrive in Hawkins at 8:00 am, driving non-stop. 

"Can I stay here for more five minutes?" I ask. I've been avoiding this day so much. "Please?"

"No," she tells me a kind of sad. I know she is hating it as much as I am. "You still need to eat, shower and get dressed. Get up."

I have no choice but to get out of bed right away. I go straight to the bathroom and, apparently, El already took a shower. I have no idea how long she's been awake, but I can smell the coffee and something else she's doing in the kitchen.

So I just do the basic: shaving, brushing my teeth, showering and dressing for work. There is nothing special about today.

When I get to the kitchen, El is finishing setting our breakfast on the table and I kiss her on the cheek before sitting down, but I still notice that she seems to be more distant today.

She sits with me and we start to eat, still in silence. I take this time to understand a little what's going on inside her mind. She is unhappy today, her hair is still damp, she is not wearing my shirts, she did what I like most for breakfast (pancake, eggs, and bacon) and there's a flower in the jar in the center of our table.

When I get to the kitchen, El is finishing setting our breakfast on the table and I kiss her on the cheek before sitting down, but I still notice that she seems to be more distant today.

She sits with me and we start to eat, still in silence. I take this time to understand a little what's going on inside her mind. She is unhappy today, her hair is still damp, she is not wearing my shirts, she did what I like most for breakfast (pancake, eggs, and bacon) and there's a flower in the jar in the center of our table.

"Thanks for breakfast," I say breaking the silence and waiting for a response from her, but I only get a weak smile and she looks back at the food. "El?"

"Yes?" it's the first time she looks me in the eye and I realize that she cried sometime this morning. I take the flower from the table and put it in her hair. She smiles a little more and notices something in my hand.

"Will you wear the ring there?" she asks me, confused. We agreed to keep our relationship a secret while I'm at Hawkins, just in case.

"Just so the hot scientist knows I'm committed." I say, remembering when she asked me what if I find a “hot scientist” and forget about her. "I'll take it off when I get there."

She goes back to being silent after that and I've already lost hungry, but I spend a few minutes forcing myself to finish the food so I don't feel hungry on the way to Hawkins. I think we both ate unwillingly.

I clean the table and do the dishes while she goes to do something in our room, still quiet. I didn't want to go with this strange feeling in me, but I understand her reasons. I will spend months working in the place where she was abused for twelve years... it is not being easy for me, imagine for her?

I grab my suit and my keys, getting ready to leave when she comes in dressed for work.

"Are you going to work earlier today?" I ask confused as she comes to me, asking to set the necklace I gave her as a gift.

"I'll go to the office and see what is still missing. It should be ready in two weeks." _shit_. I completely forgot about her new office and it's almost ready. I make a mental note to write down in my calendar about the inauguration party.

We leave the apartment together and take the elevator to the building's garage.

I pull her body up to mine and kiss her lips before she gets in her car. She corresponds with the same intensity and I am relieved by that, I didn't want to leave thinking about how strange we are today.

She hugs me tight when we finish the kiss and I take the opportunity to keep her scent in my memory before I go. When we pull away, she holds my face in her hands.

"Are you coming back today?" she asks me in a low voice.

"Yes, Ill. And I'll bring Chinese food for dinner, okay?"

She agrees and gives me one more kiss goodbye and we walk away towards our cars. Before getting inside, I hear her voice calling to me and I return my attention to her.

"Mike, when you're there... Don't go underground, okay?" I agree and we get our own cars.

I can't wait for this fucking hell end.

**\--------------------------------**

"Mr. Wheeler and his Toyota Camry!" I meet Owens as soon as I get out of my car after driving for two hours without stopping. I need to take a deep breath to get through this day. "How was your trip?"

"Hi, Owens." is he always excited like this? "It was okay, thanks. How was yours?"

"Good, great! I was driving while listening to Billy Ocean," he says smiling and I remember that my mom is crazy about Billy Ocean. "What about you? Did you hear anything cool during the trip?"

"Ah, yes... Interpol, their latest album, Our Love To Admire, do you know them?"

"My daughter loves Interpol, but I don't know much, you know... too cool for me."

I find it funny how Owens says that Interpol is too cool.

I still don't know if I like him or not. Sometimes he seems like just a passionate and curious professional, always excited and willing to make friends, which makes me think that he is probably adored by students.

On the other hand, I can't trust his constant great mood and I always have the impression that he's hiding something, but I don't know exactly what. And there is still the strange connection between him and Kali.

We arrive at the reception of Hawkins Laboratory and are examined by two security guards while a girl checks my documents. I get a temporary badge that gives me access to the building.

Owens and I head towards the elevator and I notice that all the security guards here are armed and some military people are walking through the corridors. Unfamiliar for a simple energy lab.

"Want to see the building after the meeting?" Owens asks me and I'm not sure what to answer.

El asked me to don't visit the underground floors and, even if she doesn't tell me exactly why I know that there is something related to the years he spent here.

She never told me details about the time he stayed here, only that he was mistreated and tested as if she was a lab rat and it was enough for me to want to hear any more.

"Maybe," I answer him after a while. If that floor is really where El and the other people were prisoners, maybe he won't take me there.

We arrived at a huge meeting room on the fourth floor of the laboratory. From what it looks like, I deduce that the government's investment in this project is _more than special_.

I check the hours on my watch, just to have an idea of how much time is left before I leave this shitty place, but it is still 8:20 am and I will need to wait about 10 minutes before the meeting starts. Great. Maybe I can use that time to find out a few things.

"So, Owens," I ask and he turns to me with a friendly expression. "why me?"

He seems surprised by the question and obviously has no ready answer to give me, or is thinking carefully about what to say.

"You are special, Wheeler. Intelligent, outstanding, dedicated researcher. Your work on multiverses is inspiring. It's the kind of dedication that we need."

"And what makes you think that I will dedicate to this work?" I return with this questioning because part of me wants so much to make Owens know that _I never wanted to be here_. "You know I didn't have a chance to choose whether or not I wanted to come to Hawkins."

"Any personal problems with Hawkins, Wheeler?" He asks suspiciously as if he's trying to get something out of me. _Shit._

"No," I say trying to sound casual. "I just don't think it's an interesting place for anything."

Owens doesn't answer me, he just gets up and walks around the room for a while, as if he's looking out for something. A few minutes later, he looks back at me.

"Let's have lunch today, I'll show you the city." he says and throws me a massage ball that I can catch in the air.

Our colleagues arrive at the meeting room and I decide to shut up for a while. I check the time on my watch again and it is still 8:19 am.

_8:19?_

I look back at my watch again, and it is 8:25 am. The strangest thing is that the second's hand is turning counterclockwise.

"Mr. Wheeler?" I get frightened with the disapproving voice of one of the colleagues, who is a military man and is going to host today's project. "We can start?"

"Yes, I'm sorry" I return, feeling uncomfortable. I glance at my watch again and it is already 8:26 am, with the second's hand working normally.   
There must be a problem with the battery.

I can't wait to go home.

**\--------------------------------**

"Benny’s Burger, the best in town, Wheeler. You will love it!" and here I am having lunch with Owens in a traditional Hawkins burger.

The space is kind and still looks like the classic burgers of the '80s, with a "family" atmosphere. For the number of people here, Benny must be very popular in the city.

Owens picks a hamburger "classic" and I get a cheeseburger and diet coke. El would complain for hours about my food choices today.

The waitress leaves us alone and I start thinking about what I can find out about Owens, trying to find something that doesn't compromise me.

"Did you ever live here?" I try to start casual, but I still feel uncomfortable.

"I did, for a few years, when I managed a sector of the laboratory, but I didn't stay long." He answers me and lets out a long sigh. "Some things here bother me..."

"What? Armed military men walking around the building?" I ask because even I felt uncomfortable with this.

"No, no... You'll get used to them... That building has a lot of history, son." he tells me with a distant and disappointed expression. It is the first time that I see him like this. "You know, cold war, intellectual war... We become immoral in these situations. Many people suffered from these cruel ambitions."

The waitress brings our burgers and I feel my cell phone vibrate in my pocket. It's a message from El and I smile as soon as I read it.

_“I'm going to miss you at lunch today. I hope you're eating real food. See you tonight, right? Bring my Chinese food!”_

El and I always did our best to have lunch together, since college. This is the first time since we started dating again that we didn't have lunch together.

 _“Eating a greasy burger with soda. I'll get your Chinese food if I get a kiss later. Miss you. Love you."_ I reply to her message and suddenly remember where I am when Owens catches my eye.

"Is that smile on your face for someone special?" He asks me curiously, but I won't reveal my game for him.

"My friend is going to adopt a little boy. They are going home tomorrow and we are organizing a welcome party."

"Ah cool! Children are always good, we learn a lot from them" he says before eating and I remember that I need to eat too. As soon as I take the first bite, I understand Benny's popularity in Hawkins. This hamburger alone beats almost three famous in Chicago.

"Michael, I understand your suspicions about this project and this city." he says to me in a very different tone from what I'm used to hearing. It's cautious. "We are in a moment of ambition, but I don't know how cruel it can be..."

"Yeah, it seems stupid to provoke this opening, let's call it... It is physically impossible to generate this absurd amount of energy and-"

"We already have the door, Michael. I'll show you when we're there."

**\--------------------------------**

I can hear El's voice in my mind repeating the same thing: don't go underground. By coincidence or not, this is exactly where Owens has brought me.

"Do you know the story of Martin Brenner?" he asks as soon as we get out of an elevator, and we start to walk down the main corridor of this floor. The mention of El's biological father makes me sick.

"Yeah, but not much. I know he went crazy during his research and crossed the limits of good science, but that's all I know." I answer trying to look honest. "He seemed cruel... And you told me you still don't know how cruel this project is, Owens."

I need to understand Sam Owens, whether he is a good person or not, what his moral and ethical limitations are, whether he is someone I can trust.

"I don't know, son. That's why I was a big supporter of your participation."

"Why?" _what the fuck!_

"Because I know you will stop this before they go too far."

The way he speaks to me, looking me right in the eye as if he's known me for years, is scary enough to paralyze me for a while. I don't know what to say, think or do now, so I watch Owens keep walking until he enters another corridor.

"Are you coming or not? We need to be quick, Michael."

I follow him after a while and I have a feeling that we shouldn't be here without the company of our colleagues.

Owens goes through a plastic block in the hall and I do the same. In the end, there is a large metal door that he manages to open with a red card, very different from the one we received at the reception earlier today.

I follow him after a while and I have a feeling that we shouldn't be here without the company of our colleagues.

Owens goes through a plastic block in the hall and I do the same. In the end, there is a large metal door that he manages to open with a red card, very different from the one we received at the reception earlier today.

I take some time to observe the place, and the first impression I have is that I am being suffocated little by little as if the walls could move towards me. The room is very cold, possibly colder than the other rooms in this building.

The extremely white tile seems to blur my vision and I remove my glasses to wipe the lenses with my tie, but that doesn't help. It is suffocating, cold and scary at the same time.

I follow Owens and we go down a stairway together, about four floors below ground. _I should have refused to come here_ , I think.

When we finish down the stairs, the first thing I see is a tank. An isolation tank. I instantly remind all the times that El mentioned this tank to me, especially when she had nightmares.

"Are you alright?" I hear Owens' quiet voice as I try not to think of El here alone, vulnerable, in the presence of all those men, afraid, cold, being tested and tortured for years. "Michael?"

"I am fine. It's just... a bad feeling, I can't explain it."

"I know, I feel that way too."

A small feather floating in the room catches my eye. I try to pick it up, but Owens stops me, holding my hand tightly and nods in the direction the feather is going. He blows it, but there is no interference, it keeps going in the same direction.

It doesn't make sense, I think. The feather should float, not follow a specific path without suffering interference.

I see it go, little by little, to the wall next to the isolation tank and I follow it with it until a strange noise - very soft - catches my attention. It's my watch. The watch's hands. They spin too fast, each one going in a different direction. I look back at the feather and it goes towards a small crack in the wall, between the white tiles.

But the feather stops at the entrance to that crack. Owens takes it in his hand and gives it to me. It's not a feather, but I can't explain what it is.

Owens removes his wedding ring and places the front of the crack, where the feather was, and nothing happens. The ring is still there as if something holds it.

"There's a door already, Michael. This is the door."

_Shit._


	15. October, 15

I was so nervous since the last session with Owens, but I was unable to attend the official visit across the lab. The military men did not take me underground, but I wish I was still ignorant about that place.

There was not enough time to talk to Owens after that, I just left the room as soon as he appears, and when the official meeting ends, I went straight to looking for my car and go home.

It takes two hours to leave Hawkings and go to Chicago. It took me an hour and a half, I almost crashed my car at that time. The radio stopped at a station that played a song that I hated when I was a kid, but the announcer said it was a “ _new release from Double, The Captain of Her Heart_ ”.

 _It's impossible,_ I think. _This song is from 1985, it's not new_. I kept repeating it to the announcer and myself. Coincidence or not, the station changed on its own when I was further away from the Laboratory and the radio returned to normal, but I didn't want to hear any more from there. I just thought about going home.

Now it is almost 9 pm and I keep thinking about what happened in Hawkins, in my car radio, about the bad feeling I felt when I entered the isolation tank room.

Being back at home, with El around, is what calms me a little bit tonight. We had the Chinese food I brought home as dinner, laying on the couch in the living room, watching a movie that I couldn't pay attention to. I took the opportunity to blame for all my weirdness on tiredness and she let me lie on her lap after dinner.

I keep repeating to myself that it's only two more days in Hawkins and I'll be able to rest here in Chicago. Just two more days, but then it all starts again. I don't know how to deal with it.

I get startled when I feel El getting up.

"Sorry, babe," she tells me in a sweet voice, this time lying with me on the couch, facing me. "are you okay, Mike?"

 _Nothing_ is the first thing I think about answering, but I know I can't hide everything from her and that wouldn't do any of us any good. I close my eyes when I feel her fingers on my hair, and I think about how I'll explain what happened today.

"I felt bad in that place, I can't explain..." I start speaking and it is inevitable to feel that suffocating sensation again. "Like I'm suffocating like I'm stuck. I went there, the underground... I had to. I came home early because I couldn't stand that place anymore. My radio malfunctioned, it was tuned to a station that played that Double song that I hate, you know? I was even more nervous, I almost crashed the car... I just wanted to come home as soon as possible.

I assume it's fine. I can keep hidden memories of the isolation tank for myself, Owens telling me what to do and that “door” that I still can't scientifically understand.

"Almost crashed the car?" Oh, shit! I shouldn't have talked about it either.

"It was nothing! And it wouldn't be a big accident, I swear! I was just trying to fix the radio, that song just kept playing and-"

"Do you still hate this song because you think that every time you hear it, something bad happens?" she interrupts and questions me with a serious expression. I just say yes with my head, a little embarrassed. "Mike, we already talked about it, remember? You only associated this song with a fight between your parents that happened years ago, it doesn't have the power to do something bad, it's just a song."

 _But it wasn't just the music_ , I think. Everything that happened today scared me and I lost count of how many times I almost threw up because of anxiety.

"I was anxious." that's all I can say to her. "And, to be honest, I don't want to think about it."

I turn around on the couch, not looking at her anymore, focusing on the ceiling, because I can't stop my mind from imagining what all the years she lived in that place were like. I turn around because I know she is also tired from work, that she is upset by my almost car accident on the way home, and because I don't want her to see me like this, upset.

She takes off my glasses - which I didn't even remember wearing - and puts it on the coffee table in the living room, hugging me right after, and I return her hug.

"It will be easier to deal with your time there if you are sure that something good awaits for you at the end of the day... You focus on that, you know? Slowly, your mind will be busy with the expectation of having something good here and there will be no room for Hawkins' bad things." Her voice is calmer this time, and I like the idea. "We could do something nice every night, like meeting each other at the pier and spend some time together before coming home, or have pizza at the restaurant down the street, what do you think? Something cool for both of us."

"Do I write this “good thing at the end of the day” on the agenda and wait until it happens?"

"Yes... I know you wanted to be here to meet Peter tomorrow, but we will have a welcome party on Saturday and you will be there. This is going to be the good thing of the week. We can test this idea tomorrow with the girls' night, what do you think? What do you want to do tomorrow?"

"Can I watch Star Wars and sleep with you?" I ask her playfully. For the first time in the day, I feel completely calm. It is these simple conversations like this that make me more sure of the great professional she is.

"Yes! And Thursday, do we have pizza at the restaurant down the street and take a walk on the pier? You won't need to wake up early on Friday..."

"Sure... Thanks for everything you do for me. I know that you can't analyze me psychologically because we live together and date, but you are the best psychologist I have ever met."

"Haha. I can still take a little care of you, even if I'm your girlfriend." she lies on top of me, resting her face on my neck. "Just one day at a time and all those days will have bad things, but good things will happen too. And we will live these moments together."

I believe in her, in everything she tells me. I need to believe, this is the only way I'll be able to deal with what I have ahead of me.

She lies down on me and I kiss her hair, her body so small compared to mine. We stayed like this for a while, I don't know exactly how much, but I feel sleepy with the caress she does in my hair, and since it doesn't make any sense to resist tiredness, I close my eyes following her advice.

Just two more days, one at a time.

**\-------------------------------**

El's suggestion worked well, I spent two days working at Hawkins thinking about the appointments I have in Chicago and El has helped me a lot. In the last two days, we did a Star Wars marathon with Karen and Anna, we went out for pizza dinner in the restaurant we love, I did my best to arrive early yesterday and watch her rehearsal at the dance school, I ended up participating in one and I discovered a terrible dancer.

Also last night, Lucy - El's teacher - joined us on a visit to a small bar in the city. It was a pleasant evening and I was happy to be there, with them. Lucy reminds me of my mom.

It's Saturday, but I woke up too early, my body getting used to working hours. I didn't want to make room for my mind to ramble about unpleasant matters, so I got up and tried to occupy myself a little. I ended up cleaning the entire apartment and started preparing breakfast, also thinking about cooking something nice for Peter's party.

I want to be a present “uncle” in his life. I know that he'll be very happy with Will and Brad, who will be amazing parents.

I'm almost done with coffee when I hear El coming to the kitchen, still sleepy and her hair is a little messy, but I realize that she washed her face before coming here. She is also wearing the shirt I wore to sleep and took it off this morning.

"Good Morning," I say, heading for her. "did you sleep well?"

"Hi dear. I did. You woke up early..." She gives me a quick kiss and takes our cups from the cupboard. "Were you thinking about something and couldn't sleep?"

"Kind of..." I say as I put the eggs and bacon on the plates. "I slept well, I only woke up very early. I didn't think about anything important..."

She puts my coffee in the cup and sits down with me. It is a very different breakfast from the one we had together on my first day at work. We are close to each other, her legs resting on my lap, she is much more relaxed, but I catch her looking at me from time to time.

"Mike?" she calls me with a sweet voice, coming closer to me and I feel her hand in my hair. "I forgot to tell you before... Will invited Kali and, since she doesn't know the way to their house, she is going with us. All right?"

I choke a little on the coffee. Kali at Peter's welcome party? It takes me by surprise. Kali never really made a point of being part of our lives... and I confess that I felt comfortable with it, even though I know it's selfish on my part.

"It's all right," I answer. It wouldn't be fair for me to rebel against that. "what time will she get here?"

"Around 3 pm... I thought she would refuse the invitation," she tells me in a low voice. It's really hard to believe that Kali would accept any such invitation. In the end, I just hope that she does what she promised and, since she chose it, she won't disappear from Peter's life after the party. We're doing this so that he knows who are the people are who will be by his side from now on. "Anyway... And you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. Can you cut my hair later? I think I want something shorter... And I like it when you take care of my hair."

How nostalgic to hear that. I learned to cut my hair with my mother. Over time, I learned to cut El's hair, but only the tips. She insists that I am a specialist at this.

"All this time and you think that only I can cut your hair? Nobody else?"

"No one but you." it's good to hear that and even better to feel her lips on mine, with the sweet taste of it mixed with the coffee I made for both of us. The idea of asking her to marry me again comes to my mind and I try to gather the courage to make the request.

 _It is now or never,_ I think. It's a good time, she just said that she doesn't want anyone but me. It is.

"El?"

"Yes?" Her eyes are so focused on me that I barely know how to speak.

"I'm going to make apple pie..." oh my god "to Peter's party."

"Cool. I'm going to take a bath." I'm such a coward. El gets up and goes straight to the bathroom, leaving me alone in the kitchen. It seemed very clear to me that she was disappointed with something.

 _Shit_.

**\-------------------------------**

I hear the doorbell ring as I take the apple pie out of the oven. I look at the clock and it is already 3 pm, exactly the time that Kali said she would come. El is still getting ready, so I'm going to answer it. I take a deep breath before receiving Kali.

As soon as I open the door I notice she seems surprised to see me here, but I just invite her in and realize she is holding a box wrapped in gift paper. Odd, coming from her.

She's not wearing heavy makeup this time, so I can see more of her face. Kali is a beautiful woman, more beautiful now being forty years old than years ago when El found her.

It's her personality that is so difficult to deal with.

I'm not sure what to say, so there is an uncomfortable silence between us until El arrives from the bedroom, perfect, as always, at twenty or thirty-six years old. Perfect, wearing a black dress with several colorful flowers and her hair a few inches shorter. Simple, but special.

Kali and El greet each other with a tight hug and I prefer to go to the kitchen to pack things so we can go out together. I still don't know how to act in Kali's presence, especially after the episode at her house. I wish Nancy was here.

"I'm going to get some things in the room and we head out, okay?" El says as she goes to our room and Kali enters the kitchen. I'm still not sure how to deal with her presence.

"How were things at Hawkins?" - I am surprised to hear this question coming from Kali. "Did you meet Sam?"

"Owens? Yes. It would also be interesting to know how you and he know each other" I return, but she closes herself completely. I knew it would happen, she would never help me with this. "If you ever have an interest in helping me understand, I would be grateful."

She looks at me for a while with a serious expression... "That day you said you were just trying to protect El and that I should do the same... What are you trying to protect her from?"

"Anything that comes along the way."

"I hope you can do it."

I don't get enough time to answer Kali as she deserves because El comes back from the room with the gift with Peter's gift in hand. I don't know if she noticed the strange mood between Kali and me.

"Let's go?" El says excitedly, throwing the key to me and I pick it up.

I am also the first to walk out the door.

**\-------------------------------**

Thirty minutes later, we arrived at Will and Brad's house. As soon as I get out of the car, I take the pie - my pie - from El's hands, letting her hold only the gift we bought for Peter. I don't wait to see Kali getting out of the car, I'm just going to ring the doorbell.

I am greeted by two agitated girls and a shy little boy who hides behind one of his parents. Karen and Anna head straight for El and I stand in line to receive their hug.

"Why do you always hug her first, huh?" I question the girls, but in a playful tone. They return to me, looking more interested in what I have in my hands.

"Because she's cooler!" Anna says, showing me her tongue soon after. "But I like you too."

They come to me as soon as they finish greeting El, and it's my turn to win those exaggerated kisses and hugs, while Peter remains shy, hiding behind Brad. I let him choose the right moment to come and greet us.

To my surprise, Kali seems to get him interest enough to leave his father's guard. She bends down to stand at his level and hands him a gift while greeting him and he welcomes her.

One of the things I never imagined I would see in my life: Kali being kind to someone.

El and I are finally free of the girls' arms and we go - together - to greet Peter. We also bent down to stay at the same height as him (I am still taller), as El taught that it is important to maintain a “horizontal” relationship, especially with him, who spent a lot of time in a foster home, is very shy and is in a new environment recently.

"Hi Peter, how are you?" she starts but doesn't expect him to open up now. It's beautiful to see her interacting with him. "My name is Jane, but you can call me El if you want. This one next to me is Michael - or Mike. We are happy to see you here, you know? This is your gift and Mike made the apple pie your parents said you love."

He's cute, very cute. I think he felt comfortable around us (or just El) and took the gift and even kissed her on the cheek. I just got a shy smile, but it was worth my entire day.

I am happy to be part of this party, which is simple and only for close friends. Dustin brought his dog, Luke, and the girls are in love with it. Lucas and Max are monitoring the games in the pool and near the grill. Kali is talking to Will and Brad excitedly, which at least leaves Dustin - who is watching from afar - and me a bit "shocked".

El went to the bathroom to change her clothes and help Max in the arduous mission of holding the girls' spirits up and I, kind of alone, am at the bathroom door waiting for her to leave. I even brought a bathing suit, but I don't know if I feel comfortable enough for that.

The door suddenly opens and I get a little scare. El laughs a little at my face. "Hey, did you stay here waiting for me?" She asks suspiciously.

"Yes, then we can go together... I was kind of lonely..." she is wearing a light blue bikini, so beautiful that I need to concentrate a lot to look her in the eye. "Sorry, it's just that you look really hot in a bikini."

"Oh yes? And why don't you come with me to enjoy the pool?" she gives me a quick kiss between each word and I hold her tight to me and give her a real kiss. It's good - great - as it always has been, but she slaps me off the arm and puts on a blouse quickly. "Hey, Peter. All right?"

I turn around quickly, embarrassed. What a great second impression we perform, but he just looks curious.

"Are you the astronaut uncle?" He asks me, in a small voice, so low that we barely hear it properly.

 _Oh, an astronaut._ Will must have told him that I wanted to study quantum physics thinking about being an astronaut someday.

"No, I'm not an astronaut. Not yet... But I know a lot about the universe. Do you like it?" I lower myself to be almost at the same height as he, as El taught me yesterday. He indicates that he does like the universe.

"Can you teach me? I want to be an astronaut when I grow up..." he says a little excited, probably getting used to my presence. I look back at El, who just watches us and has a silly smile on her face. I know she is thinking the same as I am, what it feels like to have a child, to hear our baby asking us to teach something. It must be great.

"Yes, I can. Want to start now?"

"No, I'm going to the pool with her." he says pointing to El, who looks "surprised". Peter takes El's hand and they leave the hall together, towards the garden.

The idea of enjoying the pool doesn't seem so bad anymore.

**\-------------------------------**

I think I finally understood every time that Max and Lucas appeared exhausted because of the twins. Taking care of children is chaos. Children at a party... 

El and I became the “babysitters” at the pool, Will invented a painting school, Lucas organized a soccer match with poor Luke's ball, Kali presented all the 80's rock songs to the children, who pretended to play musical instruments, Brad and Dustin were responsible for the food.

I watched El and Max together, distant from everyone, for a while. Maybe it's a woman thing.

In the end, Peter's welcome party ended almost midnight, with all the presents open, bellies full of ice cream and apple pie, and a Disney movie marathon. Peter slept in Will's arms and El made a point of photographing the scene.

When it's time to leave, I help Lucas take Karen and Anna to their car.   
Lucas hits me on the arm as soon as we keep the girls safe in there.

"What's your problem, man?" I reply angrily. Lucas is a pain in the ass when he wants to.

"What is holding you back to ask El to marry you? Did you propose while she was sleeping, man? Are you crazy?"

"I will ask! Stop being an asshole, Lucas. I'm going to ask when I'm done with Hawkins and-

"DO IT NOW! Have you bought the engagement ring yet?" oh, shit. I didn't get an engagement ring, I didn't even think about it. "You did not? Oh, Mike, do I have to do everything? Look, let's set up a day to go out together, I will say that we are going to have a few beers... Then we go to a jewelry store and you buy this engagement ring right away and ask this woman at home and-DUDE!"

El is coming towards us and I had to step on Lucas's foot before she heard our plan.

"Are you okay, Lucas?" she asks suspiciously. Max is on her side and I think she realized what happened. Damn it.

"Yeah! Sleep well tonight, no sex until dawn, okay?" El shows him the middle finger and I laugh. She was always more daring than me.  
Kali joins us and we share in our cars. Dustin decided to stay a little longer, so we said goodbye to him, Will, and Brad inside.

The streets are very quiet at this time, so we got to Kali's place quickly. She barely spoke during the trip, she just answered El with a word or two. I can't understand what's going on in her head.

We're almost home when El makes me slow down. "Can you get me waffles from the store? Please. I would like to eat today, but I'm dead tired. Will you drop me off at the building entrance? Please?"

"Can't it be tomorrow?" I ask. "I'm tired too and-"

"You don't have to go far, there is a supermarket nearby. Please, Mike? I promise I'll make it up to you as soon as you get back."

Buying waffles almost at 1 am is the most peculiar thing El has ever asked me, but I decide not to question too much (especially after the promise that my effort will be worth it).

I stop the car in front of our building and, before leaving, she gives me a wet kiss and says she loves me. I still find it all weird, but something comes to mind: El and Max talking away from everyone this afternoon. I hope the reward will be very worthwhile (I know it will).

I follow the way towards the nearest market and hear my phone ring and I complain a little. Who would call me at almost 1 am?

But I stop the car at the shoulder immediately when I see who's calling and answer the phone.

"Hi, Mike. How are you?" it's Nancy. Your voice is strange as if she's worried about something. "How is your research going?"

"Okay, I studied some more this week," I say, taking the notepad and pen that I always leave in the car. "what about you, did you understand that movie?"

"No, it got more confused. I'll never watch anything you recommend again." she sighs deeply and I find it too strange. "The policeman, father of the little girl in the movie... He's one of the friends, you know? This appears when it shows that scene of them in the early years, very young.

"Hmm, I don't remember..." I can't put the dots together. I can't or I don't want to. "It doesn't make sense to have that in the movie, Nancy."

"But there is. Check this later. I think the scene takes place at ten minutes into the film... ten minutes and fifteen seconds. Watch again later."

"Okay," I say, still refusing the information she gave. It's not possible. "The policeman?"

"Yes. I need to hang up, I'm going to cook something Bye. I love you."

She hangs up the phone without giving me time for an answer. I look at I wrote on the notepad.

The policeman, the father of the little girl in the film, is a friend. Ten and fifteen.

Hopper is a friend. October 15th is El's birthday.

Hopper is a friend, but whose? I eliminate Kali because he didn't know her before us. Owens? No, it doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense for Hopper to have had a connection with Owens.


	16. Pandora’s box Pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This chapter is one of my favorites! I hope you like it as much as I did writing it.   
> Also, thanks to all the kind comments and kudos yall are giving to this story. This means a lot to me.
> 
> Please, stay at home and safe. <3

I wait to see the car turn the corner so I can run-up to the apartment. I'm going to propose to Mike tonight and I'm really grateful that he fell for my lie and agreed to go to the market.

As soon as I enter the apartment, I take a surprisingly quick shower and put on the most beautiful (and simple) dress I find in the closet. I still need to find the wine Max left here over a month ago and we never opened it for obvious reasons, but today is going to be a special night and I won't be alone, so a glass to celebrate won't hurt.

It's been ten minutes and if I'm right, I only have five minutes left before Mike gets home. I put on the lipstick he loves, a strong shade of red that matches the dress I choose. I thank the universe for my hair being in a good mood today and I manage to get ready. There are two minutes left and I still haven't chosen my shoes. _Damn it._ I don't know if I start to look out for aromatic candles or if I choose what to wear. I choose candles, he may not even notice that I'm barefoot - and if he does, I shouldn't need them for long.

I asked Mr. Walter, the building's doorman, to call me as soon as Mike arrives. That would give me an extra minute to prepare for him. I keep repeating to myself the quick speech I made with Max this afternoon.

I wouldn't be doing all this if it weren't for her. I know I want to be with Mike, I just never imagined asking him to marry me, but the idea has not left my mind since the day I dreamed he asked me. I don't know if it was really a dream, especially since Mike always seems to want to ask me something important, but he never does. According to Max, maybe the dream is real and he just isn't getting the order.

I hope she's right.

I look in the mirror one last time. I'm ready, as far as possible. I go to the living room and wait for him, it's time, it's 12:35 am now. He can arrive at any time. The candles are set around the room, I just need Mr. Walter to call me and let me know. Or maybe he forgot? Fuck it. I turn on the candles so they take effect right now.

That's it, I'm ready. I think he'll be in shock when I say the words, maybe even cry. He always cries with happiness. I love him so much. Seeing him with the kids today just made me sure that I want to live with him forever.  
I start to think about what our wedding party would be like and I can't help thinking about my father, how I wish he was here today to meet Peter, to encourage me to finally ask Mike. I miss him so much.

I get nervous over time. By my count, it would take Mike at least fifteen minutes to get into the market and come home, but it's been almost fifty minutes since I came upstairs. Maybe he's stuck in a line. Maybe the market is closed and he had to go to another one.

The phone finally rings and I run to answer it. It's Mr. Walter and Mike just arrived. I prepare for him, still nervous. I try to remember everything I rehearsed with Max this afternoon, but I can't.

He opens the door and doesn't notice me as soon as he enters, only after leaving the key on the counter. As soon as he sees me, he stands for a while and I decided to start talking.

"Hi..." I'm so nervous that I can barely speak. He also looks tired, looking a little distant, but I try to ignore it. "I wanted to surprise you because... I want to ask you something." He also leaves the bag on the counter and gets closer to me. "I... Mike, you... do you want to marry me?"

If Mike was nervous about proposing to me all this time, I just understood him. I felt so nervous that I barely knew how to speak. Now I don't know what to do other than waiting for an answer, and with every second we spend in silence, I feel more anxious. He still has a vague look, which I find strange. Maybe I chose a bad time, maybe he’s not ready for it.

I start to think that I did everything wrong, at the wrong time when he comes up to me and kisses my neck suddenly and I know it will be marked later. I am surprised to feel his hand inside my panties, touching me at my most sensitive point. I didn't expect this reaction from him, I expected something calmer, sweeter. Some kisses between smiles, a tight hug, making love in our bed, and talking about the details of our party until the sun comes up when we would call all our friends and family to tell the news. This is exactly what Mike would normally do and I would love it.

But this Mike who is with me now seems to be very different from what I know. And even though I find it unusual, I like how he's touching me, how he lifts my dress and lays me on the couch, standing over me.

I hold his head firmly and stick my lips to his, his tongue invades my mouth as if we haven't kissed in decades and I return the kiss with the same intensity. And it is in the contact of our tongues that I feel a bitter taste that I know well: whiskey.

It stops me for a moment. Mike doesn't drink alone, at most a beer or wine when he's with the boys, but never whiskey. Karen Wheeler always drank whiskey after the fights with Ted, so he even hates the smell of the drink.

"Mike-ah, yes!" I try to break the moment and question him for being kind of drunk, but he enters me by surprise, his movements deep and fast. I know I should check if everything is fine with him, but the pleasure he gives me now speaks much louder than reason.

He finishes fast, very fast and this is completely abnormal for him. He comes out of me as soon as it ends. This, with me, is not my Mike.

"Mike?" I call him, but he buries his face in my neck, quietly. "Are you all right?" he doesn't answer me, which makes me very frustrated. First, because he still hasn't responded to my question, second, for drinking and third, for not even bothering to give me an orgasm too.

He gets up away from me, sitting on the couch and fixing his hair. He doesn't look at me at any time. I feel left behind, empty. A feeling of insecurity comes after all of this.

He didn't even answer my question.

I watch as he rests his face in his hands, looking extremely tired, as he mumbles something I can't understand. Apart of me feels rejected by him, while another part wants to embrace him. My irritation speaks louder.

"Can you at least answer my question, Mike?"

"What question?" he gives it back, still without looking at me. I don't know what to say or do now. He takes the wine from the coffee table and fills a glass. He drinks half in such a short time that I have to take the cup from his hands. Mike looks at me, really, for the first time since he came back and I think this time he managed to understand the shit he's doing. "Hey, I'm sorry! I want to! I do, I want to marry you now. I want it so much."

He tries to hug me while he talks, but I pull away. He's a little drunk, which makes me wonder how much whiskey he drank in such a short time and is taking effect so fast.

I don't want to see or hear him now, so I leave him alone in the living room, and go to the bathroom, get my makeup off and take a shower. I need to sleep and think about it in the morning. He calls me while I walk to the bathroom, I think he follows me too, but I don't want to see him and I close the door as soon as I get in there. He keeps slamming the door, asking me to open it, but I see myself in the mirror, my lipstick smudged, the mark of the kiss he gave me on the neck...

I can't help crying because I feel powerless. I shouldn't have asked him to leave, maybe if I had waited until dawn, maybe if I had noticed his condition before saying anything...

I sit on the floor and pull out a towel to cover my face because I know he can break the door and come to me if he hears me cry.

Eventually, he stops calling and I don't hear anything else. I take a shower a little longer this time and I cry again. I feel useless, I don't know what happened to make him come home like that.

What hurts me is knowing that he won't tell me the truth later, which reminds me of when I was in a similar situation, before asking for him to get out of my life.

_"I'm fine Mike, you don't have to worry."_ Everything so he wouldn't feel what I was feeling at the time.

I decide to leave the bathroom because I am worried about the silence in the apartment, but as soon as I open the door, I see him lying on the floor, sleeping. I can't help remembering the night he found me on the floor of this bathroom, unconscious.

I try to carry him to our bedroom, but it is hard. Mike is too tall and heavy compared to me. I can wake him up long enough to get him to bed. I take off his shoes, shirt, and pants, from where I take off his wallet and cellphone out of his pockets. I notice that there is a piece of paper and I remove it too. It's folded and I'm apprehensive about opening it, first because I don't want to be invasive, second because I can't imagine that on this little piece of paper there is the phone number of someone he met at the bar or wherever he was drinking earlier.

But this piece of paper can also help me understand what happened.

I open it at once as if it was a bandage. It's not a phone number, which makes me relieved, but I can't quite understand what is written there.

Nancy, June 18: The policeman, the girl's father, is a friend. October 15th.

Hopper is a friend. El's birthday.

None of this makes sense to me, but I put the paper back into his pocket. Let it be washed with his pants, fuck it. I make a mental note to call Nancy as soon as possible.

When I lie down on the bed, Mike turns to me and hugs me, a little sleepy. He whispers a lot of things in my ear and some make no sense at all. _They know each other_ , he repeats.

"Mike, please, sleep." I say in a calm voice in the expectation that he will go to sleep for good, but it has the opposite effect.

"Hey, hi," he says with his face very close to mine. "Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt you? Did I hurt your body? I'm sorry!"

"Okay, you didn't hurt me. It's okay, I liked it, okay? Go to sleep, Mike." I kiss him on the lips in an attempt to calm him down. I also feel sad to see him that way.

"You still love me? I love you, I want to be your husband. I love you." he fills me with kisses on the face. This is a little more like the Mike I know. "Did I break your heart, my love?"

"Yes. But I love you anyway." He gives me a sweet kiss and whispers a thousand apologies, until he sleeps on me, his face resting on my shoulder. I can still feel the smell of alcohol on his body, but I can't fight it now, I need to try to sleep too."

I hear a low noise from my phone and search for it with my eyes, but I can't find it around and I can't move or Mike will wake up. I have no choice but to use my mind. I barely remember the last time I used my skills. I hate using them, I feel abnormal and it's a constant reminder of the years I spent locked up in that place.

I focus as much as possible until I feel the impact of the cell phone against the bed. I run my fingers over my nose and realize that this time it didn't bleed.

It's just a message from Max, asking me to call her the morning and tell how was my first night as someone's fiancee, so I prefer not to answer.

I wish I could erase this night from my mind.

**\-------------------------------**

I feel the wind against my face as I run towards nowhere. I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night, so I decided to leave early and exercise. I sent a message to Dustin to find Mike at home and have breakfast with him, so he would not be alone this morning. Dustin understood and didn't push me to explain anything. I appreciate it.

I still don't know how to talk to Mike and that piece of paper I found on his pants pocket still upsets me, maybe that's why I run from my house to my dad's house without notice. It's been over five years, but I didn't want to sell or rent, it's still his place, the place I visit sometimes when I miss him.

I take my cell phone out of my pocket and call Nancy. Whatever she and Mike discuss about my father behind my back, I prefer to know before entering his house. Fortunately, she answers the phone on the second ring.

"El?" her voice seems surprised when he answers the phone. "Is everything all right?"

"The policeman is a friend, fifteen and ten. What does it mean?" she doesn't answer me right away and is silent for a few seconds. "Please, Nancy!"

"You don't have to worry about that, it's bullshit from me and my brother, El."

"If it's bullshit, why did he come home drunk last night? He never drinks alone, Nancy. He came home driving drunk. What did you talk about yesterday?" she remains silent and I start to lose patience. "Nancy, I found his note and it has my father's name, please answer me!"

"I can't!"

"Okay. Start talking in 10 minutes. I will find you my own way." I hang up the phone without waiting for a response from her.

Since I didn't plan to come here today, I don't have the keys, so I end up opening all the locks with my mind. Although no one has lived here for more than five years, I pay a person to come here at least once a month to clean and check that everything is as he left it.

I follow the way back to my old bedroom and lock the door. The old TV that has been in the same place since I moved in with Mike, more than twelve years ago. My father liked to keep my bedroom exactly as I had left it when I moved. When Mike and I came to visit, we stayed here.

I open my old closet and take a black stripe from one of the drawers. I think the last time I used it was when I looked for Kali.

It is the third time today that I need to use my powers and I feel sick from it. I can almost hear Brenner's voice asking me to keep trying, to concentrate, to smash a can of soda, that white title room in the basement of the laboratory.

"Forget it." I whisper to myself. I don't have time to remember what happened there, I need to look for Nancy and hope she tells me what she knows. I make a simple effort and turn on the old TV in my room, sit on the edge of the bed, facing the TV, and take a deep breath. I put the black band over my eyes and think about Nancy.

Getting into that place was easier than I thought.

Everything is still dark around me, the way I remember it since the last time. I can hear Nancy mutter to herself as she paces her living room, holding her cell phone. She's at home in Dublin. I sit in the armchair in the living room and wait for the clock to set the time.

I know that she is in a dilemma between telling me the truth or being faithful to her brother and, for a moment, I almost give up waiting for her. I'm almost out of here when she starts talking to me.

"I don't know if you're here now, I hope so..." She has her back to me, so I get up and try to stay in a place where I can see her face. "Mike went to Kali to ask who told her about the Hawkins project, but you already know that. She sent him a message at the end of the day saying who told her and we found out it was his colleague, the guy who put him on this project. His name is Sam Owens, he is a professor at the University of Chicago."

_ Sam Owens?  _ I know Sam, he was my psychologist in Seattle. He came to visit me - always supervised by my father - about a year after we ran away from Hawkins. I took psychological counseling with him from thirteen to eighteen. We lost contact (or my father made sure we did) when we moved to Chicago in 1990. In '92 I met Mike in college.

I met Owens again at the rehab clinic in 2006, when I stayed there a few months after the overdose. Owens also accompanied me during that time, but I have not been in touch with him since I left.

"We found this connection between Kali and Owens weird and I decided to investigate them" Nancy continues, still nervous. She left me and sat in the chair where I was before, with her face in her hands. I sit on the floor, trying to face her. I wish I could calm her down. "Kali was arrested for driving drunk in April and Owens paid bail. I kept looking for something to help us understand and found out that Hopper and Owens knew each other. There is a document signed by your father on October 15, 1987, in which he states that Joyce Byers would be responsible for taking care of you in case something happened to him. Owens also signed that document as a witness. But that is all I know. Yesterday I called Mike and talked about Hopper and Owens getting to know each other, that's all, I didn't think he would do anything stupid."

I am confused and scared. Maybe in shock. I remove the bandage from my face and leave the _ void _ , losing contact with Nancy. I don't know what to do now, I didn't know that Kali and Owens knew each other, I had no idea that he had anything to do with the Lab. Did Owens know my father? I don't know, I don't remember him when he was a prisoner there. He's reliable? But it looks like my father trusted him.

I send a text message to Nancy thanking for telling me the truth. A drop of blood falls on my cell phone and I notice that my nose is bleeding a lot this time. I try to clean myself with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

I can now understand Mike's reaction better. I think about calling him, but it's still 8 am and he's not awake, I guess. Anyway, Dustin must be with him.

I understand that I need to understand my father's relationship with Owens and I think I know where to start. In the loft, there is a pile of boxes with some things that belonged to my dad.

I go to the corridor and open - with my mind - the small door to access the loft, also releasing the spare staircase. I go up there and use the flashlight on my cell phone to look for something that may help me. The loft smells like an old thing, there's a beam of light coming from the roof, some cobwebs. No one but my father and I has ever entered here. Not even Mike.

I find a pile of boxes leaning against one of the walls. All of them have an identification: Hopper - Vietnam; Father (my grandfather); Seattle; Sarah Hopper, my foster sister who I didn't have a chance to meet either. She was the result of my father's first marriage and died of cancer at an early age; Army;

_ Hawkins _ , the last box in the pile. I open it carefully and find two folders and a key. The first folder is named Brenner and I choose to ignore it. The second folder has a few things about my birth mother. I ignore it too.

And then, there's the key with a piece of paper stuck with a written address.

The place is far away, still here in Chicago, but I'm without a car. I think about calling Mike and asking him to take me there, but making him even more paranoid is everything I don't want. Max is working at the hospital. Dustin is with Mike. Will and Brad just received their son at home, I will not bother him with this. I remove Kali from the list because I don't know how close she is to Owens, let alone what I will find at that address.

But there is one person Mike trusts and must know about Owens: Lucas.


	17. Pandora's Box: part 2

Fortunately, Lucas didn't question me and promised not to talk about it with other people. He left the girls with Will and Brad, picked me up at my dad's old house, and now we're 15 minutes from the address I found.

While waiting for him, I called Mike and explained that I needed to get a document from my father and that I would be back soon. Dustin is there, so I'm relieved that he's not alone now. At the beginning of the conversation we had, it took me almost ten minutes trying to calm him down and assuring him that he didn't do anything stupid last night, that we're fine. I promised to talk to him later.

I still haven't explained to Lucas what I found out, because I believe he is aware and contributing to Nancy and Mike in this madness.  
I, on the other hand, try to assimilate the information, try to understand why Owens took Mike with him to Hawkins, as he and Kali know each other because my father signed a document guaranteeing Will's mother my custody.

I know that my father and Mrs. Byers studied together, but I did not imagine that he trusted her so much that he would give her my life. I love Joyce, I met her a few times during all these years dating Mike and being friends with the boys and Max. Mike considers her as his second mother.

I lean my head against the car window and try to think of something - anything - that can calm me down now, but I can't. I'm a little afraid of what I'm going to find in that place.

"Hey... what's going on, El?" Lucas asks me calmly. "Mike called me earlier today, said he thought he did something wrong. Is everything okay with you guys?"

"Well... he didn't do anything wrong. He got home drunk and I was upset. We're both going to be fine, we talked on the phone and I think he's more relaxed. It's gonna be okay. We are not going to this place because of him." 

"Ok... And why are we going there?" He asks suspiciously.

"I found out that Mike and Nancy were looking for information about a person of his work, who coincidentally knows Kali and my father. But you should already know that, right?" Lucas looks at me uncomfortable after what I said, so I hurry to calm him down. I have no right to be upset about his behavior when Mike must have asked to keep this a secret. "Okay, I'm not upset with you. Or with anyone. I just can't understand how these three people connect..."

"I understand. I didn't know that Owens knew your father."

"Mike found out yesterday through Nancy, so he thought that drinking a lot of whiskeys would solve something. It sucked because I had prepared a surprise for him... I was going to propose. Silly, right? I was so excited."

"I don't think it's silly... And since we're no longer keeping secrets, Mike wanted to ask you for weeks, but he was nervous. Yesterday we agreed to go out together to buy you a ring."

It takes me by surprise. So, if he hadn't accepted my crazy idea of buying waffles, if he hadn't received that call from Nancy yesterday, he wouldn't have drunk that much and would come home well. Would he probably have accepted my request?

"I wish I could go back in time... Rewind last night like a cassette tape and haven't asked him to go out alone. I was more upset that he drunk." my father died in a car accident. I can't stand the thought of losing Mike, either. "If I could go back in time..."

"For what? If you could redo last night would you have discovered what you discovered today? Would we be on our way to that place now? It happens, El. Everything is a consequence of our choices."

I keep silent this time because Lucas is right. If things hadn't happened this way, I probably wouldn't have figured out what's going on, let alone that Mike works with Owens without knowing that he knows about me.

**\----------------------**

We finally arrive at the address my father wrote. It is a big area, a company, a storage company. A young woman meets us at the reception and I let Lucas do the introductions.

"Mrs?" I'm taken by surprise by the girl's voice. "Can you show me your ID?"

"Yes, I'm sorry." I give her my identity and she checks my access authorization in the system.

"Shed 286 belongs to Mr. Hopper. I can let you in because you're his daughter, but I can't allow Mr. Sinclair to come in, I'm sorry."

"But he's coming with me, thank you!" I take Lucas by the hand and we go to the shed that belonged to my father. I don't have much time for the officialisms here.

My hands are shaking to the point where I can't put the key in the lock and open the shed door.

"El, calm down. Give me the key, let me try." I thank god, universe, and whoever else exists for not being alone right now. I hand him the keys and Lucas opens the shed very easily. I make a mental note to ask the receptionist to install an extra lock or a security system with a password, just in case. I don't know what my father keeps in here, but it must be extremely important.

Lucas enters first and turns on the light, while I stay outside for a few seconds doing a breathing exercise until I'm calm enough.

The place is small, I deduce that it is one of the smallest spaces rented in this company. It's been five years since my father's death, so I wonder who keeps paying the rent. I need to ask the reception girl about this.

The space is incredibly clean, which I find peculiar too. Someone keeps this place, I do not doubt it. There is little a filing cabinet, some boxes labeled with colored labels. There are a TV and a DVD player and a VHS player. Weird.

Lucas decides to check if the devices work and I find a painting attached to the wall, with some things written a long time ago. I can see that they are indications of the boxes: yellow refers to Seattle; blue is about Vietnam; red is Hawkins...

I start with Hawkins, the biggest box. It has three folders: one with documents about me, one about Hawkins' Laboratory, and one with documents about Brenner's project. I choose to see what's in the box in the lab, but there's nothing I don't know. It is the memo of the laboratory, from its construction in 1955 until 2000.

Meanwhile, Lucas reads the documents about Brenner and I am grateful once again, I would not have the stomach to read anything related to that man.

My folder remains. I open it carefully and put the documents I find on the floor. There are some papers about me, like my original birth certificate and it messes with me. I would like to be able to erase from my story that I am Teresa Ives and Martin Brenner's daughter, my name is Jane Ives, not Hopper, that I was originally born on October 14, 1972, not 15. This document proves who I came from and I’d love to burn it all at once, but if my father kept it all that time, I understand that I can’t destroy these things.

I remember one appointment I had with Owens when I was a kid in Seattle. He always told me that I cannot bury my past, that it will be easier to accept it. It was the most difficult part of my therapy at that time, but I understood years later that he is right.

I find some pictures of me with my mother and I feel a huge urge to keep it with me, but I know I can't. If someone who shouldn't see this photo, all the work my dad and my friends have been doing all these years to give me a new identity goes down the drain, then I put it back where it was.

There is another photo, this time just me. I am in a child's room, which means that at some point in my childhood, I was not trapped in that laboratory. I keep this picture with me, maybe Mike will like it.

At the bottom of the box is a red folder with a lab seal. I open the folder and see that there are some reports of my father's experiments with me, of my mental and physical health, a report of the surgeries they did on me, one of which took away from me the choice to be a mother or not one day. One more paste that I would love to burn.

"El?" Lucas' voice catches my attention this time. He's holding a box with Owens' name on it, so I approach him for a better look. Inside the box are a VHS tape and a DVD and several loose papers. "How do you want to start?"

"Put the DVD on while I read some things here." the first paper I read is a police report registered on October 30, 1983, whose delegate was my father, in Hawkins. It is an accusation of torture.

Lucas turns on the device and Owens appears on the screen. It is a very old recording probably the original material is that of the VHS that was copied to a DVD. In the video, we can only see Owens, but what surprises me is hearing my father's voice in the background.

"I'm recording because I need a guarantee from you, Owens." my father says in the recording using an intimidating tone. "Say what you know."

Owens looks a little nervous in the video and is much younger. The date on the recording refers to November 23, 1983. I was already living with my father at that time. We spent some time living in a cabin he had in Hawkins, hidden from everything and everyone.

"I have video records and official documents that prove that Mr. Martin Brenner, along with part of the army and federal government endorsement, tests on humans, especially children, at the Hawkins National Laboratory." Owens appears handing my dad a box to my father. "Brenner is responsible for the torture and death of eight children, in addition to his wife, Teresa Ives."

I feel sick immediately. I didn't know that Brenner was responsible for my mother's death, I just imagined it. But _knowing_ this is much more violent for me. I lay my face on my hands because I don't want to see anything, even though I know I need to.

"Until the police action on November 4, 1983, there was a prisoner, a girl." I hear Owens' voice coming out of the television and I feel Lucas's hand on my shoulder, supporting me. "She was killed by Brenner. None of their victims survived. Brenner ordered their deaths, used lethal injection or shocks. All the evidence is in the files I gave you."

"No survivors?" My father asks.

"None."

The video is cut off abruptly and a warning appears in the video that the evidence delivered by Owens is attached to the N83 folder, the same one I had taken to read and found the police report in Owens' name.

I hand Lucas the folder in my hand and put on the DVD. The first image that appears is the same as the one on the DVD. The first few minutes is Owens' statement. I advance the video to the part that was cut on the DVD and continue watching.

"No survivors?" I watch my father's question again.

"None." and Owens' answer.

After that, my dad appears in the video picking up a few things from a table and returning to his previous position. He's so young in the video. When I moved in with him, my father was only 41 years old. He died at 61. It was only 20 years with him.

"You understand that I'm making this video to protect us, don't you?" My father asks and Owens shakes his head in confirmation. "This recording is evidence I have against you. If Jane and I get caught by any federal agent, this recording will be released and you will likely be arrested or killed by your co-workers. It's your choice"

"I see, Hopper. I'm doing what I think is right. Her certificate is in the files." The recording ends shortly after.

So that's it, Owens reported Brenner's project to the local police. My father broke into the lab with his team under the allegations of torture and kidnapping. In combat, my father killed Brenner and rescued me...

Owens knew that, somehow. He also knew that I was there and reported it. As a guarantee of my survival, my father collected evidence against Owens, just in case it would be necessary one day.

I take my official documents and try to compare them with what I remember with my current ones. My birth certificate, civil registration... everything is official, registered correctly in a registry office. Owens got this documentation.

Owens also did my psychological counseling when I was a teenager. He also accompanied me to the rehab clinic.

He always seemed like a trustworthy person, but if my father felt he needed to record a video that proves Owens' complaint, should I trust him?

"The police report is anonymous, El. They made a deal for you..." Lucas says in a deep voice and I know there is something he still suspects.

"Should we trust Owens, then?" I ask, not just for me, but for Mike and Kali.

"Not yet. Let me look for more about them. Do you want me to take you home?"

"No. Take me to my dad's house."

**\----------------------**

It was afternoon when Lucas left me and took me to my old home. I was informed that my father paid the equivalent of eight years of renting the space and also authorized the cleaning of the shed every six months, done by the employees themselves. He must have trusted this company a lot.

I made three copies of the shed's keys: one for me, one for Lucas, and one for Mike. I brought with me a box of evidence and documents about Owens.

I declined Lucas's invitations to lunch, to be taken to my house safely, to go to his and Max's and spend the day with the girls, getting distract a little. I appreciate his good intentions, but I needed to be alone. I still had a lot to assimilate.

Mike called me three times in the meantime and I declined it all. I'm not ready yet, I need to resolve myself before meeting someone.

At my dad's house, I looked for anything that could connect him to Owens and found nothing. Absolutely nothing but my memories during my father's supervised consultations.

I think about how I may have handed Mike to Owens without knowing it while I was at the rehab. I spoke openly with him about my relationship with Mike, from when it all started until I kicked him out of my life. However, I never mentioned his full name.

Unless Owens was watching over me after my father died, he wouldn't know who _Michael Wheeler_ really is.

But Owens may have been checking on me at one time or another over the years. I remember he came to me at the clinic claiming to have recently found out about my father's death, that he was sorry and that he knew how protective he was, how much he loved me.

Owens knows everything about Jane Ives and Jane Hopper and, although my father assured me that Owens was someone I could trust when I was a teenager, why can't I trust him now?

After looking for something that would give me a light in my father's house - and not finding it - I started walking back home. I think it was stupid of me to deny Lucas' ride, but I really needed to think.

On the way back, holding Owens' box in my hands, I stop at one of Chicago's beaches. I feel the strong wind against my body and I wish, for an instant, that it will take away the bad feelings.

I send a message to Mike and ask him to find here on the beach, partly because I miss him with me, partly because I feel weak. I didn't eat anything today and the emotional overload seems to be taking me away.

I don't know how long I sit on the sand watching the sea, I only know it was getting dark, because of the rain-laden clouds, when Mike arrived and sat next to me, with a box of Waffles, chocolate and marshmallow from my favorite place.

He doesn't pressure me, he just waits for me to eat and think about what I'm going to tell him.

"Owens accused Brenner to my father," I say after some time. "they made a deal, so Owens provided Jane Ives with a death certificate and an official birth certificate for Jane Hopper... He was my psychologist when I was a teenager and my father supervised, he was always around. He used to say "Jane, you can tell Sam what happened in the lab", I remember that. We lost contact with him when we moved to Chicago."

Mike listens in silence to everything I have to say, not even the sound of his breathing interferes with my thinking. I don't know if his stillness is from shock or confusion.

"When all that shit happened to me in 2006 and I went to rehab, Owens visited me there. He said he had recently found out about my father's death and decided to look for me, that he was sad to see me there... He helped me a lot, you know? I talked about us because he was my fucking psychologist, but I don't know if that exposed you in any way... I'm sorry." 

He does not say anything, he just hugs me and I rest my face on his chest. It smells so good, so comforting. I thought the wind would take away everything bad I felt today, but no, only his presence can do that. "My father had a shed, I asked Lucas to take me there... I found some things and made this key so you can go there if you need to."

He holds the box and the keys, kisses me on the forehead and asks me to wait for him to come back. Mike gets up and I follow him with my eyes, I see that he keeps the things I gave him in the car and comes back to me very quickly, hugging me as soon as he sits down next to me.

"Thank you for telling me, El. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about this before." his voice is so sweet to me. "I'm sorry about yesterday too... I reacted the wrong way..."

"It's okay, I understand you. I still can't understand everything, I don't know if I can really trust Owens..."

"I think we can, can't we? If Hopper trusted him..."

"Yeah... But I think it's better if he keeps “not knowing” about us, or that we know about him. At least until Lucas investigates more."

"Ok. I think we work better as a team, don't we?" I smile a little with that and I sit on his lap, resting my back on his chest. I feel his embrace, the caress he makes on my arm... I think of my mother. Would she like who I am today? Would she like Mike? The choices I made?

I hate Brenner for taking my mother from me, taking my childhood, my chance to be a mother too. I hate to remember that he is my biological father.

"Brenner killed my mother... Owens said in the statement. I don't know how it was or why... I wish I had met her." I feel such a tightness in my heart when I say that and I can't help not crying this time. Mike holds me even tighter and I feel more secure about having him with me now.

"I wish I had known her too, but she and your father must be so proud of you, wherever they are. They must see you every day and be so happy that you are so, _ so strong _ , so smart, fair, caring, lovely... I'm sure they loved you so much here and are proud of you now..."

I believe him and try to recover from that happened today. I feel like I was in Plato's cave all this time, and now I feel the pain of being able to see the truth around me.

I can't forget or erase my past, where I came from, who made me. Owens was right, I need to accept and move on, make room for the moments I can build now, with the people I love.

It's the best punishment I can give Brenner now.


	18. I need to be okay

**Chicago, Illinois. October 15, 2000**

"Hey, Kid!" I turn around when I hear my father's voice as he comes to meet me. It's my first birthday in the apartment that Mike and I bought together. "Happy Birthday."

"Thanks, Dad." he gives me a box full of birthday ornaments and I thank him with a tight hug. There is a party in the room, just our family and friends.

We stay together, observing the view from my apartment's balcony. It is beautiful, we can see Chicago's harbor, no other buildings are covering our view, the streets are not too busy... It's perfect.

"I loved it here, baby." my father says with a lively voice. "I'm so happy for you and Mike... I'm proud too."

Mike's parents didn't come to today, and I hardly think they ever will, but he looks good while talking with Joyce and Nancy in the living room. "His parents are not coming, right?" My father asks, but I know he already knows the answer.

"No... Karen called me earlier today wishing happy birthday, she talked to Mike. I didn't speak to Ted." I think about how disinterested Ted is with his kids. In a way, I am grateful that he's not here today and I think Mike is relieved too. Ted's constant look of disinterest and disapproval is the last thing we want around.

"Thank you for being my father." I rest my head on his shoulder, which is supported on the porch railing, and cross our arms. "For choosing me, for welcoming Mike too... He loves you as a father, you know?"

"But you chose me, kid." your laugh is so good to hear. "I love you both. I am very happy to see you building a future together."

My dad is tall, almost like a bear, so I practically disappear inside his tight embrace. His scent is always the same: that masculine scent of eighties' heartthrobs and cigarettes. He has been smoking less since we moved to Chicago, but it is an addiction that he has not yet completely gotten rid of.

He gives me the gift box back and I open the box. In it, I find four blue bracelets, and only now do I understand why, a few weeks ago, he asked me for the bracelets that we had worn since he adopted me. He did two more of a kind.

"Four bracelets? You, me..."

"Mike and whoever comes in the future."

"Dad... you know I can't."

"Not in a conventional way." he puts some of my hair behind my ear. "Honey, you told me these days that you want to be a mother... As your father, I can't let you give up on your dreams. I'm with you, whatever you decide."

**\----------**

**Chicago, Illinois. June 15, 2008**

Mike and I stayed together at the beach until the early evening. He convinced me to walk around in the sand before we went home. I was so exhausted that Mike ended up showering and cooking for me, making me eat the dinner before going to bed.

All I wanted to do was sleep well last night, but I couldn't. Sometimes I dreamed of Brenner, other times about my mother or my father walking aimlessly through a cold, dark place that I can't quite figure out where it is. But none of these affected me as much as the one that kept me awake until the next day.

In the dream, I only saw Mike in a white room, while my father was in another. I was in a corridor, between the two of them. By my side, Brenner challenged me to choose one of them. If I chose my dad, Owens would kill Mike; if I chose Mike, Brenner would kill my dad.

If I didn't choose one, he would kill them both.

I woke up screaming so loud because of this nightmare that one of the neighbors rang our bell and asked if we were okay. I couldn't sleep after that.

It is past eleven in the morning and I've sent a message to my boss saying that I would not be able to work today because _"I have a terrible cold"_. Mike doesn't work on Mondays and Fridays, so I let him sleep late, even though I know he's going to complain that he “lost most of the day”, but he also didn't sleep yesterday.

Slowly, I manage to free myself from his embrace without waking him up and I go to the bathroom, look at myself in the mirror, and, God... I look terrible. I take a quick shower in an attempt to look a little better.

When I'm done, I make coffee in the hope that it will help me look less like a zombie. I open the windows curtains to let more light in, but it's raining a lot outside, leaving everything dark and cold. It seems to match my last days.

I cut some fruits and make some toast with the coffee and take it to Mike in the bedroom. He took such good care of me last night, I want to do something special for him.

As soon as I finish, I organize everything on a tray and go straight to our room. He is still asleep, but has changed position and is now hugging my pillow. He probably searched for me there but was too tired to notice my absence.

He's sleeping and using his wristwatch on and I remember the bracelets that I used to wear with my father. We took off for nothing.

I place his breakfast coffee on the nightstand and open one of the drawers, where I find the box with four blue bracelets that my father gave me as a gift: one for me, one for him, one for Mike and one for our baby, in case we ever have one.

I feel Mike's hand running down my back and I turn to find him. He has this look of someone who has just woken up, accompanied by a shy and lazy smile. I entwine my fingers in his hair.

"Hi." his voice is rough and tired. I feel guilty about it, especially since I know he is in bad shape because of me. "you're all right?"

I nod and he stands up enough to hug me from behind and leave a kiss on my shoulder. He sees the bracelets in my hand and hugs me a little more tightly.

"Yes..." I say quietly. I don't want that sad mood to persist. "You should wake up earlier... do you want coffee?"

I give him the Star Wars mug he likes so much and I get a wider smile of reward.

"Where did you find it?" he finally asks about the bracelets and I shrug. I don't know how to explain that I just remembered them this morning.  
"In the drawer. I miss using it, but I don't know if it makes sense without Dad here..."

"Hmm..." Mike puts the coffee mug on the nightstand and sits beside me on the bed, takes one of the bracelets, and asks me with a look if he can put it on my wrist. I say yes. "What if you use yours and his? So you'll have a memory of him with you all the time... to protect you. What do you think?"

"I like that... can I?" I ask, referring to putting the other bracelet on his wrist and he leaves me. "There's still one left."

I see Mike look at the bracelet carefully and try to imagine what is on his mind. He knows what it means, both for us and my father.

"What if this bracelet is... our future?" His voice is so timid as he asks me.

I turn to look into his dark eyes and see my entire future in them, everything I have planned for both of us. So I say yes, this bracelet represents our future and I let him take care of it by putting it on his wrist.

I feel his lips kissing my face several times, the heat of his body against mine, his fingers running around my waist, making me squirm and laugh. I manage to let go of his arms strong enough to stay less than a meter away, but only until I catch my breath. I don't want to be away from him.

Mike extends his arms back to me, offering me a hug, and I accept. So we stayed like that for a few minutes, he sitting on the bed with his face on my stomach while I'm standing and I caress his hair.

I remember the night I proposed him, which culminated in all these discoveries I made and two cruel days for me. I don't know what to feel yet, but I know I want to be with Mike.

I hold his face, making him look at me. I try to propose again, but there is something that stops me, something that I can not explain. I let him pulls me onto his lap and rests his forehead on mine.

"Please don't propose to me now." I'm impressed by what he says. I feel like an open book that he can read perfectly well. "You know my answer, it will not change... Ask me again when we are happy... So that it will be a good memory for both of us."

"Ok... If it's a prank to ask me to marry you first, I'll say no." I joke, but I agree with him. I want it to be a happy moment between us, a good memory, something to tell someone in the future as a good story.

I don't have to push myself or think about it now. Deep down, I know he will say yes, whether today or a thousand years from now.

**\----------**

I get to have lunch with Max at the restaurant near the hospital where she works and I am grateful for her company.

After the disastrous weekend, Mike and I needed to get back to our normal lives, learn to deal with what we discovered days ago. Mike must go on, pretending he doesn't know me when in Hawkins, while I'm going to try to find out how and when Kali and Owens met each other.

"So, is everything okay between you two?" Max asks as soon as the waiter leaves our table. "Everything went in such a different direction..."

"Yeah... But we are okay. I'm more concerned with Mike driving to Hawkins every day, as well as coming back here. He once told me that, on the first day, he almost crashed the car and-"

"Crashed the car?" Max speaks so loudly that it catches the attention of half the people in the restaurant. "How did that happen, El?"

"Max, he almost crashed the car. He said he was nervous on the way back, he was irritated by the car's radio, he was coming at high speed... I don't know all the details because he didn't tell me." Now, saying it out loud, it seems that what happened is much more serious than I was imagining before, as if only talking about it out loud would make the near-accident _real_. I rest my face between my hands and take a few deep breaths. "I wish I could get Mike out of there..."

"But you can't, El. Some things you can't change... Tell me, have you been sleeping well? I'm worried about you."

"No more or less. You can't sleep or rest, Max. I dream about my losing father... or him and Mike in danger... I just _can't._ "

Max puts her hand over mine on the table. She doesn't say anything for a while like she's trying to find the right words to say, which seems odd since she knows she doesn't have to act like this with me. Not anymore.

For a moment, I think she is finally going to tell me something but is interrupted by the waiter bringing our dessert.

"Well... cheesecake!" she says trying to force a relaxed tone that doesn't even convince a stone. I prefer to ignore the strange weather and focus on the food. "El, this weekend was too harsh to you... with things that you have not yet overcome or decided to hide deep inside. You know that better than I do."

In the past few days I've had to deal with which one of my weaknesses at once. Motherhood, addictions, my past, my father and his secrets, my father and his sudden death, people who know more about me than me, Mike working at Hawkins ...

"Yes, I know, Max. I need to close these matters, I just... I just don't know how to do it yet."

"Maybe little by little. Look, next week you’ll inaugurate your new office, you’ll realize that dream you’ve had since you were a teenager…"

The way she says it reminds me of the advice I gave Mike these days, about focusing on the good things to come in the coming days. Maybe I should hear myself more.

The atmosphere with Max gradually improved until it was time to leave the restaurant together. Even so, her hug was tighter than usual, the concern to accompany me to my car, to hold my arm while we walked together.

The last time Max did that was right after my break up with Mike and I started to fall.

When Max splits our hug, she looks sad and worried, runs her fingers over my face, brushing away some strands that remained on my face. She _really_ thinks I'm on the verge of a relapse.

Maybe I am.

"El... You are a sister to me. I need you to be well, to take care of yourself more, I need you to focus on your life now, no matter what happened in the past. Promise you will try?"

Her question hits me hard as if a speeding car had crashed into my body.

"I promise, Max."

**\----------**

Mike came home fine. Watching him open the door to our apartment was as if that feeling of a car against my body had moved away from me.

We didn't talk much about Hawkins, he preferred to talk about my new office, how it will be a nice party, how it will be a success going forward and he is radiantly happy. In the meantime, I only enjoyed his presence as much as I could.

It's after two in the morning when I wake up after a dream. This time it wasn't so cruel, but my father was walking towards a cabin very similar to the one we lived in for a while, hiding from the "bad men" who were looking for me.

The cabin was destroyed, dark, damp. Completely abandoned, but he went to her anyway, while he whispered my name and said he was "here, on the other side". I tried to touch him, get his attention at all costs, but it was as if I didn't exist for him, as if some invisible wall separated us.

I know there is probably nothing after death, I feel it, but something makes me think about looking for him. Maybe I can see him, know where he is, if he's okay, if there's anything after we die.

I think of him, how he was the last time we met. He came to help me fix the shower that had broken and Mike was only making it worse. In the end, my father solved the problem, as always. I think of the image of him laughing with us the last night we were together, three days before his death.

I can't find anything on the void. It's empty. There's  _ nothing _ . He's not here because he is  _ gone _ , forever, so I come back to the real world trying to not cry again, not to wake up Mike by my side.

But he feels what I'm feeling, he always knows when I'm not ok, even sleeping. His strong arm passes over my body and I turn around, resting my face on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. I hold on to those sounds because I know that as long as they exist, I'll be fine.

I need to be.


	19. Dr. Jane Hopper

"Wow!" I turn around to meet him at the door of our room with a sweet smile. I don't know how long he's been watching me. "You look beautiful. Really."

We are going to celebrate the opening of my new office tonight and Mike is completely electric, he has not stopped talking about the party in the last few days and I am grateful for that. I don't know what would become of me without him around.

It will be simple, just our friends, Kali, some co-workers, and my boss, who supported and helped me with the construction of the project. Celebrating this is like starting my life over after everything that has happened in the past five years.

"You're overreacting" I say to him because, honestly, there is nothing special about me today, just a white dress and light makeup, but he has been talking about this dress for days.

"You need glasses, then. Seriously, you look beautiful. I hope I'm matching you tonight..." I punch him lightly on the shoulder. He looks beautiful in a light gray dress shirt that goes with dark blue pants. He wanted to wear a tie earlier, but I didn't think he needed to. "By the way, everybody knows that you are committed to _me_ , right?"

"No, I told everyone that I'm single and looking for a rich old man." there is no chance that Mike will believe this because I can't stop laughing.

"Ah, that's good! I'm looking for a rich old woman too..." he says laughing as he hugs me from behind, wrapping his arms around my waist. "You look awesome. And this cleavage here..." he runs a finger through the slit of my dress, which goes from the top of my belly and I need a lot of concentration and willpower to keep his hand away from me. We are already a little late because we enjoyed the bath longer than we should.

"Hey, get out! We're going to be late..." he turns around a little dramatic, but sits on the end of our bed, looking at me for a while, in a strange way... as if he is trying to tell me something.

Mike then kneels in front of me and I start to get nervous. Will he propose to me? _Now? My God_... I almost pass out when he ties the shoelaces and starts laughing. Fucking idiot.

"Go fuck yourself, Mike!" I use my foot to push him away, but he holds my leg hard enough that I can't get away and he laughs at my face, kissing my leg and tickling at the same time.

"What did you think I was going to do?" He finally lets go of my leg and I give him the finger while he continues to laugh. I can't keep a straight face, so I start laughing too.

"You promised me that I could ask you to marry me, so I'll ask when _I want to_. Don't you dare, or you will go a month without sex."

"I doubt it..." he takes my heels and puts my feet on so we can get out soon. "I love you, you know?"

"I know. I love you too."

**\--------**

Almost everyone has arrived at the fraternization tonight. Mark, my boss, was delighted with the office, especially with Will's careful work with architectural and decorative design.

Dustin brought Megan, his girlfriend, to the party. They make a beautiful couple and she even insisted on interviewing me and publishing an article in the local newspaper about my office. I gladly accepted it but I couldn't allow a photo of me next to Mike, specifically, just in case someone (Owens) has access to that newspaper.

I believe that he probably follows all my steps, but I thought it best to avoid unnecessary exposure. The focus needs to be on my work anyway.  
Max comes to me with a glass of champagne, rolling her eyes, and I prepare to hear what she is going to complain about this time.

"My husband left me for your boyfriend..." Oh, shit. Mike left me alone for a few minutes and was glued to Lucas, in a more reserved place in the room. I don't know and I don't even want to imagine the subject of the conversation. "Then I'll stay here and take his place."

"It must be some bullshit from them." I concentrate better and see that Dustin and Will are also there, all laughing together. Mike sees me watching them and winks at me, but I don't have much time to answer because my dance teacher, Lucy, has just arrived and I need to say hello.

Lucy is like a mother to me. She encouraged me to continue at the dance school and to restart this project. So this is all part of it too.

"My love! I'm so proud of you!" I receive her with a tight hug and I feel so happy to have her and everyone who came here with me.

Mike comes over to greet Lucy. They get along, maybe because she looks so much like Karen Wheeler. The closeness them is important to me too, so I let them talk for a while and concentrate on welcoming some people with Max by my side.

The last guest to arrive is Kali. Honestly, I didn't expect her to come here tonight, as I haven't met her in person since Peter's welcome party and I sent her an invitation by voicemail.

She came alone - which is not a surprise - and put aside the heavy makeup she usually wears. It is a lighter and smoother version of herself, which makes me question the reason for this change.

"Hey, you came!" I say, drawing her attention right after seeing her enter the room. Kali hugs me and I realize now that I've missed her in the past few days, but I know I needed to distance myself a little. "Thanks for coming."

"Of course it would come... I loved your photo there at the entrance."

"Oh, Mike's idea," I say, a little flushed. Mike put in mind that I should have a series of pictures of me, especially for the official opening. "He spent a whole day photographing me... There are more than fifty photos if you want to see one day."

"He looks excited..." Kali tells me, pointing to Mike, who is engaged in a conversation with Lucy and Will. "I'm happy for you."

"Yeah, he's very excited... Thank you." I realize that she still looks a little awkward here, so I think about how to make her less uncomfortable. "Want to know the place?"

Kali accepts at first and I cross our arms as I introduce her to the place, the children's care room, the teen care room, the waiting room... Will did an impeccable job. I think, now, that Mike's excitement for this opening has something to do with the result being almost as we planned a few years ago before we broke up.

She chooses to go to the balcony of the building, which has a beautiful view of downtown Chicago. We watched the movement of the streets while playing Dave Matthews Band's Crash Into Me (probably Dustin put this song on).

I watch Kali for a moment, trying to understand what's going on in her mind now. There was a change and I noticed it at Peter's party, but I can't think about what happened and I don't even want to go into my thoughts to the point of reaching _that_ person.

"I'm proud of you, El. I always have been." Her voice is low and she fixes her gaze on her champagne glass, which is already half full. "Congratulations on everything you've achieved... Sometimes I think I want to be a little bit like you."

"Don't say that, Kali. This is crazy!" I say a little indignant. "I wish you would see yourself as I do..."

"Hey, I do see myself in a good way, El. It's just... You inspire me to be a better person." she answers me while drinking some champagne. "I arrived a long time ago, you just couldn't see me. Don't get me wrong, please, I just wanted to be comfortable with all these people and-"

"Do you feel comfortable hiding from them?" I am irritated by her attitude, I will not lie. "You know you don't need it."

"I know, stop lecturing me... Look, a few months ago I did something shitty and I was arrested, nothing serious, drunk driving, but it has already been resolved... Anyway, I started to think better about what I do with my life. I'm trying to change for the better..."

I know this “drunk driving” is related to her arrest in April and Owens getting her out of jail hours later, but I prefer not to comment on it and wait for her to conclude.

"When I got here, I saw you and Mike together and I was thinking about the connection between the two of you... I thought _how does it feel to have someone like that?"_ I saw you and found out today that I'm in love too and I want this person with me, you know? Someone on my side. Maybe because I'm getting old?" she smiles now, a wide smile. I don't remember seeing her smile like this since we met. I give her a side hug kiss her cheek.

"You're not old, stop it! Forty years is not the end of the world and it is not too late to do anything. I'm _really_ happy for you... Who are you in love with, huh?" I take some of her hair behind her ear.

"Angela..." she tells me in a low, slightly shy voice. I hope she doesn't feel awkward or anything like that because she's in love with another woman. I kind of imagined that the two of them were more than friends who shared an apartment. I would like to meet Angela personally. "We've been dating for a few months. I think I love her... for real. You look at Mike the way I look at her."

"Wel ... so I think you love her very much." she smiles with me and rests her head on my shoulder, while I kiss her hair. "I want to meet her. Do you want to have dinner or something? Me, you, Angela... can I invite Mike too?"

"Invite me to where?" Mike approaches us with some sweets that are being served at the party. He still has a smile on his face. "Hi, Kali."

"Hi, Mike." I think for a moment that the weather can get bad between the two, but it doesn't, which surprises me. "We were talking about inviting you to dinner. You two and me and my girlfriend."

"Oh, you're dating!" he replies surprised. "Cool! Congratulations! I'd love to meet you two... Let me know the day, I'll be there."

I am between them, surprised, but happy. There was always a tension between Mike and Kali, which only got worse after all that shit almost two years ago. I never thought I would ever see them in "peace" someday. I hope they'll stay that way.

Max joins us and we talk for a while until I need to leave them to give a little speech at the opening. It is so strange for me to be the center of attention, wherever I go. At least I'm among friends. And Mike just took the role of "official photographer of the event" (there are certainly more photos of me than of the party itself).

I thank everyone who came here, everyone who helped me build this space. When my father adopted me, at least I had Owens to help me deal with the changing environment and understand what I experienced in that place. I think that, even though I have my suspicions about him, I am grateful for the support I had.

I experienced my worst moments in adult life as when I lost my father, my self-confidence, the person I love the most. I almost allowed myself to be swallowed by the pain of losing everything I had forever, but I was privileged to have people who helped me get up.

I want to help other people who have lived what I have lived too.

**\--------**

We ended the party by 11 pm, when some of my colleagues from work and the dance school gradually left, leaving only Kali, Mike, and our friends. Dustin got too excited and put on some silly songs, making the main room a dance floor or whatever. Mike is having a great time with Max, Dustin and Will by th sound of Dire Straits and a super old song, while Lucas and Megan are filming them. 

I almost lose my breath at laughing at Mike's ridiculous dance.

"I never thought Mike was that fun," Kali says beside me and gives me one of the leftover canapés from the party. Oh my God...

We laughed together as the group tried to imitate the guitar solos of _Sultans of Swing_. Even I'm surprised by this.

"We had a difficult week..." Kali looks worried, but I prefer not to fully explain what happened. Not tonight... "Some things - memories - from my father... And from Brenner, but I prefer not to comment now..."

"I understand... sometimes you want to bury the past, right?"

"All the time..." I agree because, if I had the power to change my entire past, I would change or erase everything that precedes my father.

Kali doesn't have time to answer me because Will comes over to her and invites her to dance George Michael's Careless Whisper. She tries to resist, but I insist and she let it go. Of all my friends, the one who is most open to having a possible friendship with Kali after 2006 is Will. But I understand why Max, especially, still has a hard time opening up to Kali. She was the first person Mike called when he found me unconscious at home, so she never forgot his desperation that day. Mike and Max are very similar to each other.

I didn't escape the dance when Megan put on _Girls Just Wanna Have Fun_. I took off my shoes and went to the makeshift dance floor, danced with my friends, my boyfriend, and my sister for hours. I don't think I felt that happy in years, I never smiled so much.

It is an overwhelming feeling to see the people I love the most with me now, having fun in the night that represents my restart after all the shit that followed my father's death. Of course, I would give anything to have him here too, but I know I can't.

Mike and Kali having fun together with the sound of _Dancing With Myself_ was the biggest plot twist of my night. I record that moment with my camera and my heart, too.

I remember him telling me about asking proposing him when we are both happy so that it will be a good memory. I am going to propose to him tonight, I decide. I have no reason to wait any longer.

I sing the chorus of _Time After Time_ at some point during the party, when we are embraced and alone on the balcony, between the warmth of his lips on my neck and the cold Chicago wind. The song is perfect for both of us.

_If you're lost, you can look and you will find me_

_Time after time_

_If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting_

_Time after time_

The party ends very late, in the middle of the night. I think the fact that we were all past thirty did not allow us to spend the night at a party or bar in the city, as we did in college. Mike and I say goodbye to our friends. And while he talks to Will, I take the opportunity to say goodbye to Kali.

"Hey you." I get your attention before letting you in your car. "You and Mike dancing together, who knew..."

"I'm drunk and he's less unbearable today..." _liar_ , I think. I know she is joking and I smile as I accept her hug. "Congratulations, El. I love you."

"Love you too."

We stayed together for a few seconds and I notice that something is intriguing in her eyes, as if she is trying to find something in me.

"Always remember who you are. It gets a little better when you accept yourself... What we have is special, don't let him own what is special about you, sister. There is nothing wrong with us. Remember who you are."

I accept her affection before I see her get in the car and leave. I also accept her advice. Maybe I can live better if I accept who I am and don't let _him_ own me.

**\--------**

I decide to drive tonight, but not back home. I prefer to take Mike with me to the beach. It is already dawn in Chicago, the beach is empty and the only lighting we have comes from the streets and the full moon.

Mike is still excited and pulls me into a bath in the cold Chicago seawater. We enjoyed a few more minutes together, throwing sand at each other as if we were teenagers, running along the beach, watching the moon...

"Mike..." he stops cleaning the shells he found and turns his attention to me. "Is it possible for other realities to coexist with ours?"

"Maybe... It hasn't been confirmed yet."

"But do you believe that?"

"I think so... We are not that special to be the only ones in the universe. Why do you ask?"

"I just thought that if there are other realities, I hope I have at least met you in each one of them."

"Romantic..." he just makes fun of my comment. "I wish the same."

"Are you happy today?"

"Yes, a lot." we are both completely soaked from the sea bath and he has a look of curiosity and innocence. I want to see that look forever.

"How nice..." I say, as I approach him enough to sit beside him on the sand. "I've been thinking about asking you something for a while, I think now is the time, right?"

"I think now is a good time..." he holds my left hand in his and runs his finger over my engagement ring, while I remove some of the wet hair that is on his forehead.

"Mike Wheeler..." he makes a surprised face when I say his name and we both laugh together. "would you like to marry and spend your entire life with me?"

"Yes. In every reality."


	20. Olivia Moss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go... Two people from the past will appear at this stage of history, but I guarantee they are not bad people.
> 
> Well, I felt that I needed to bring Liv (Mike's ex-wife) back to the story. I wanted to explore the character, so I think this is going to be good. I hope you like it! 
> 
> Let me know what are your thoughts, it's always a joy to receive your messages.

****

**New York, April 2005**

It is my third week in a row in New York. Three weeks away from Chicago. Three weeks without hearing El's voice, without knowing how she is doing.

Three weeks since I left home after the night she asked me to leave.

I'm still staring at my phone at the fancy bar counter near Central Park, spending a considerable amount of money on drinks that I can barely finish and some well-made snacks to eat. Every night I keep wondering whether or not I should call _her,_ so I go walk around in the city trying to find something that might distract me a little.

At least today I was too busy at a conference about quantum physics. And, besides the fatigue consuming me, I notice the guy playing some Dave Matthews Band songs live here in the bar, and he is good.

I haven't spoken to anyone (except Nancy) since El broke up with me. I don't even know how she's been since that night, so I keep torturing myself every day for leaving.

She was not okay and, even though most of me did not believe her words during our discussion, my mind keeps repeating everything over and over until I come to believe it, that she no longer loves me, that she betrayed me that night.

I think about calling at least to know if she's okay.

I'm about to get my cell phone on the counter when the bartender hands me a drink, that I didn't order, and shows me that someone paid for it. I look in the direction he points and I see a woman. I think we met earlier at the conference. I smile back to her and she starts to approach me, sitting next to me.

"Hi!" She's beautiful, very beautiful. She has a wide smile, wears a delicate perfume, good enough for me to notice. She has beautiful dark skin and her hair is full of dark curls. "Wheeler, right?"

"Hi... how do you know my name?" I ask, wondering. I don't remember talking to her during the conference, just that I may have seen her from a distance.

She points to something on my jacket and only now I do realize that I still have the sticker with my name on it, an ID I used for the event. I smile back to her and take the sticker off.

During our conversation, I learn that Olivia is _cool_. She is two years younger than me, studied electrical engineering and has a master's degree in nuclear engineering, is a fan of Friends, was born and raised in New York, is the only daughter of a South African immigrant and a British doctor, they all moved to the United States years before she was born; she also has a dog named Bob.

In the end, Olivia and I are very similar in terms of tastes, hobbies, and desires. We talked for hours until the bartender announced they were closing the bar and we needed to leave. Liv, as she let me call her, invited me to her apartment that night. I knew what that meant.

But I couldn't decide at the moment whether I could go with her or not, so I asked her five minutes to “make a phone call with my sister, Nancy”, but it was a lie.

I find myself outside the bar, trying to have enough courage to call El, trying to find out today whether or not I should move on.

El answers the phone when I was about to give up. Hearing her voice after twenty-one days reached me in a thousand different ways, making me even lose my speech.

"Hi..." I stutter and take a few deep breaths trying to think of what to say. "How are you?" She doesn't answer my question and we ended up being silent for a while. The only thing I can hear, very low, is the sound of her unsteady breathing. "What you said to me that day... about not loving me anymore... was that true?"

"Yes." Her voice is firm and comes along with the voice of someone I don't know, calling her name. It seems to be a man's voice. So I think this is the sign I needed.

I hang up the phone and get back to the bar. I accept Olivia's proposal to go to her apartment, with the unspoken promise of something else.

That night in New York was the first in years that I kissed a woman that was not El. It was also the first time that I slept with another woman and I never felt so _empty_.

I wasn't fair to Liv. I couldn't stop thinking about my El while I was with her that night, but I knew I needed to move on.

Little by little, I started to get used to her presence in my life and six months later, we were engaged.

My parents liked her and her parents liked me. It was simple, comfortable, but I still couldn't understand why she accepted to marry me.

One year later she told me the truth. Her parents were pressuring her to marry someone since she was "a single woman in her thirties".

A good deal for both of us.

**\-------------**

**Hawkins, Indiana. November 21, 2008**

I finish writing this week's research report before I go out to lunch with Owens plus finish "today's duties" early so I can go home as soon as possible.

Despite everything El and Lucas found out about Hopper and Owens's connection, I choose to not give Sam space to talk about _my_ personal life.

El also managed to discover more about Kali and Owens's "friendship", and it's also related to Hopper. When El found out about having a sister, Hopper and Owens tried to find her together, but they could not do that. Only El and the help of her "powers" could do the job. 

Since then, Owens has kept a protective eye on Kali. That's how he learned of Hopper's death, El in the rehab clinic, it was through Kali he managed to keep his “protective eye” on El as well.

Of course, he knows about me. He knows that El and I are together, that we have been for a long time, but we are not comfortable letting him into our life. Maybe this is why he keeps a low profile with each one of us. He didn't contact El after the rehab period, so we decided to keep things that way.

Owens is an elephant in the room that we have decided to carefully ignore.

I hear knocks on my door as soon as I turn off my computer and find Owens there, waiting for me. He never takes this excited smile off his face and, even after months of working together, I can't get used to it.

We leave my office together as I notice there is an intense movement in the building today. Some people I've never seen here before, more military men, some big boxes being carried _somewhere_.

In the past few months, I have done my part in the work, analyzing that hole in the wall and gave the latest updates on the study earlier in the week to the team.

There is an amount of energy coming from there, but the hole is too small and thin for deeper investigation. There is also a low quantity of radiation coming from the other side, but nothing that can be risky at this point.

Owens and I presented a document arguing that no one should force a rupture in the wall, but they did not listen. Fortunately, all attempts to penetrate that wall were useless. Forcing an opening using the gap itself results in nothing. It's completely useless. Any attempt to break through a viscous layer that we found between the wall and the other side results in its regeneration in milliseconds after our interference.

What we have not reported to the team is that this hole is being made from the inside out, which means that whatever exists in there is making this hole in the wall, so we have no power over it. Any interference appears to be insufficient.

I tried once - alone - to force a micro camera through the hole, but the other side is just too dark and I could not see anything. There's probably a total absence of light there.

The interesting part is that I noticed that the hands-on my watch moves in a specific pattern whenever I get closer to the wall. The time, according to my watch, is nine times faster when I'm there.  
One more thing I omitted in my reports.

"Do you know what's going on here today?" I ask Owens, trying to understand what is going on here.

"They brought some equipment from Massachusetts. I still don't know what it is, but a team of engineers also came." Owens says carefully, paying attention to those who passed us in the corridors.

"Do you think it's underground?" I worry about the type of equipment they brought here.

"Maybe... they won't give up so easily, even with your apocalyptic predictions, son." I smile a little at his joke, but it's true. I analyzed that fucking hole for enough time to know what I'm doing. If I were to consider only the energy coming from the other side through the hole, opening a very small "door" on that wall could cause such an irregularity that it would result in half of Hawkins being "swallowed" by the other side. A timid version of a black hole.

We passed the reception of the building together when I came across a woman coming in the opposite direction from me, causing her to drop a pile of folders she was carrying.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry!" I say to the person I just ran over on the way, but as soon as I hear her voice I almost go into shock

"Hi, Mike! It's been a long time..." It's Olivia. I freeze for a few seconds and only come back to reality when she touches my arm, asking if I'm okay.

"Hi, Liv. I'm fine, just... surprised." surprised is nothing compared to what I'm feeling right now. I'm panicked, paranoic, almost having a heart attack. "Why are you here?"

"Oh, I was invited to a project... I'm helping them to build a time machine, let's call it this way." she says smiling and I feel like I'm about to throw up or pass out. I look at Owens and he understands me.

"A time machine?" Owens asks her, with a friendly expression. "Nice to meet you, I'm Sam Owens. I work with Mr. Wheeler on a project here in the lab. Welcome!" 

"Well, time machines are impossible! This is just a nickname I use." Liv answers Owens amicably. What kind of machine are they building?

"Oh, I understand! I see that you and Mr. Wheeler know each other, right? What do you think about having lunch with us?"

Owens's question almost makes me want to run away. This is not the best time to have a conversation with my _ex-wife_ who was surprisingly invited to work in the same place as me, building machines (something she knows how to do very well) for broken military and government.

But she gladly accepts, as she always does.

Owens took us to lunch at Benny’s Burger, “Hawkins’s best hamburger”. Liv chooses the finest option, as always.

"So, how do you know each other? It's an interesting coincidence, don't you think?" Owens starts the conversation at the table and I automatically try to put an absurd amount of fries in my mouth just so I don't have to say anything.

"Hmm... We were married." Liv says a little uncomfortable and looks at me in an attempt to get some help to explain the situation, but I can only offer a full mouth smile. "But we divorced earlier this year. How did you two meet?"

"Ah, we worked together at the University of Chicago and came here to contribute to study," Owens answers Liv smiling, but I notice his puzzled look in my direction. "But why did you split up? You are cute together."

"Personal differences, Owens," I reply trying to be as direct as possible. "Liv deserves someone more dedicated than me."

"Don't say things this way, Mike... makes it look like we fought and hate each other."

"Sorry... Liv, what brought you to Hawkins? What's this project? I think this is the most interesting topic today." this time I try to look less boring in conversation.

"Is it safe to speak here?" she asks a little worried.

"Michael, stop boring the lady with things from work. Lunch is for relaxing! Now I understand why they are divorced." he says smiling and I'm still uncomfortable with the whole situation. "I take this opportunity, Mrs. Moss, to say that you are very welcome in Hawkins. If you need a co-worker or someone you want to talk, we're here."

"Thanks, Owens... Nice to know that I won't be alone for the first few days" she speaks before drinking some soda and I realize I need to talk to her alone as soon as possible.

Lunch was relatively tranquil, even more than I imagined. Owens and Liv spent most of the time talking about the city while I texted Lucas. I needed to talk to someone about this unexpected encounter and as he knows about my painful work in Hawkins, I felt safer to talk to him. I don't want El to know about the news via text message.

Liv rented a house around here and she must stay for at least a year. I am due to leave the project in December, which makes me think about their plan: someone comes here and finds out what that hole is and what are the risks, then someone else is dedicated to fucking open that "door". Seems promising.

**\------------**

I wait for Liv to get in my car after work. After lunch, I asked to speak to her privately and she accepted.

"Oh, the temperature is much better here," she says sympathetically. I left the car heater on because of the outside temperature, which must be 50ºF. It's November, so it's snowing a lot. "Thanks."

I just smile and start the car, driving to a little bar she told me about and is not far from the lab.

When we arrive, I notice that there is a TV placed on the wall, showing local news about the weather prediction for the next few days. Apparently, Hawkins will be way too cold this winter.

Liv and I choose a table by the window and I am in a position that allows me to watch my car and see who gets in and out of the bar. I have chosen places like this since I started working here, for safety. I have also been practicing shooting with Lucas for the past few months.

Liv asks the waitress for two drinks, but I refuse and order some water, which makes Liv surprised at my decision.

"I'll drive back home, so I can't drink..." I explain and try to break the strange atmosphere between us. "How are you?"

We haven't talked much since I left New York. I think we spoke for the last time when I arrived in Chicago and I needed to talk about the transportation of my things from her house.

"Well... Nothing significant. It was a surprise..." she is interrupted by the waitress bringing our drinks. "It was a surprise to meet you here, to tell you the truth... weren't you going to teach physics in Chicago?"

"I thought I would, too. I was invited to work with Owens here, it's only three days a week and my contract is about to end. I am supporting him with some energy research. And you?"

"Well... I find it weird that you agreed, I thought I would stay longer in Chicago." I don't know how sincere or sarcastic her comment is, which is unusual. "I participated in some research at MIT and developed a machine that concentrates a lot of energy. The goal is to break some barriers, but I think that you can explain it better."

I smile not because of her comment, but because I understand what she came here to do. The most "simple" attempts to open the door were useless and they will not follow my recommendations, so they hired a team to do the work.

I admit that I underestimated their intelligence.

"How's Jane?" Her question catches my attention.

"Well..." I say shyly because it is still weird for me to talk about El with my ex-wife. "She's much better than before. Healthy... Will and Brad adopted a boy, his name is Peter."

"Oh, that's good! I remember they had to fight in court..."

"Yeah..." I'm staring at my water bottle when I feel my phone vibrate, but I don't want to touch it now. I need to know more about Liv's work. "How is this machine?"

"I don't think I should tell you..." She drinks the shot she ordered at once and signs to the waitress that she wants another. "but I trust you."

She gets up from where she was and comes over to sit next to me. I see Liv take a pen from her blazer pocket and a napkin. She is so close to me that I can smell her perfume, which makes me think she used it before getting in my car... Weird.

Liv makes some scribbles on the napkin, a quick sketch of what the machine looks like. The waitress approaches to place another drink on the table.

"So, this one," she says as she draws an arrow indicating a part of the drawing. "is where the electricity of a part of Hawkins is going to be pulled. That other part will have nuclear energy, which conflicts with that part and is expected to cause a collision. I can't exactly explain everything because this project was divided between several people, each one knows apart. A huge contract prevents me from talking about what I do with my work colleagues." 

She drinks some more of the drink while I think about what I just heard. A collision... what the fuck?

"Why do you call it the time machine?" I ask, curious.

"Because they explained briefly that they would like to cross borders. If I remember your physics books, everyone is curious to discover new realities, to overcome frontiers of knowledge, to understand how the universe works and blah blah blah... I call it the time machine because, imagine that it will work someday, will they be able to access a new dimension? What if they access the time? Going back in time is always an interesting wish... Would you go back?

"Yes." I do not doubt it. If I could go back in time today, knowing what I know, I wouldn't have let Hopper out of his house and die in that car accident. Probably El and I would be together with our children running around our big house near a lake, I wouldn't have left, she wouldn't have sunk in drinks and drugs... I wouldn't have married Olivia. "But this is impossible."

"I know, I underestimate this project a lot, but the money is good... And being away from New York has been good to me. My parents were not very happy with our divorce, you know..."

I feel bad about it. My selfishness and inability to move on left me blind enough to not realize that my impulsive actions would harm her over time. The wedding has already committed to an end.

"I'm sorry... for doing all that with you... I kind of used you to get over someone else and-"

"I used you too, it's okay." she gives me a fake smile when she stops talking. I see her hands come up to my face and I get a little frightened, but she just takes off my eyeglasses and cleans the lens with a napkin before putting it back on my face. "The difference is that I had feelings for you..."

"I had feelings too, Liv."

"You did not and it's fine, Mike. Really... I met El at the rehab clinic in 2006." _oh shit, shit, shit._ How did I not know this before? "I understand you, she seems to be a good person, very beautiful too... We talked a few times after that." 

"Why did you go there?"

"You came to Hawkins for a science event, you got a call from her, and stayed a month without going back to New York." her voice is a little harsh with me, but I deserve it. "I could only speak to you on the phone if I made the call. I wanted to understand you two... I mean, she called you and you stopped being my husband that day."

I don't answer because I don't know what to say and I'm ashamed too. Even though the whole situation was complicated with El spending almost a week in a hospital after an overdose and I was helping Max and Lucas to find a place to live in Chicago so they could stay close to her, trying to find a good rehab clinic and controlling myself not to freak out again with Kali, I should have thought of the person I committed to years before.

"I understood when I found her..." Liv talks again and I start to think that maybe I should order a drink and get drunk tonight. "At first, I thought there was something about me that reminded you of her, that I could emulate Jane somehow, but I was wrong. We are very different from each other. You stayed with me because maybe I could erase her from your mind." 

"I know I was a terrible husband and I apologize again, I feel guilty every day-"

"Stop... I don't hate you, or Jane. We both choose that, Mike. And I know that you considered me... a friend. I was important in your life and I am grateful to have met you. It's okay, really. I just wish I could hate you a little bit." 

Liv says it playfully and we laugh together. When we signed the divorce, the judge joked with us that he had never witnessed a divorce between friends.

I feel my phone vibrate again and decide to check it out. El sent me the last two messages, the first asking how the weather was on the road and the second asking if I was okay. I reply that I'm going to be late, but I'm on my way home and she sends me back the message with an "ok, I love you."

"I need to go home, Liv. Thanks for the conversation... If you want to join Owens and me for lunch, you're welcome." I say as I get up to leave the bar. I let some money on the table for water and a tip from the waitress.

Liv gets up too and we awkwardly hug each other, but when I pull away, I feel her lips touch my face, very close to my lips. A kiss that didn't happen because I moved away fast. I didn't expect that from her and I'm embarrassed by it.

"Sorry, Mike, I-"

"It can't happen, Liv. I love El and we've been together for a few months. We live together and are getting married when my contract here ends."

"I'm sorry" she is nervous too, can barely look me in the eyes. "I think it was an old habit. It won't happen again, I promise."

"Okay... bye" I say goodbye and go straight to my car, turn it on and start driving back to Chicago.

I didn't want to talk to El about Liv via text message, but now I don't know how to explain what almost happened at the bar. I don't understand why she tried to kiss me after so long and I always thought she knew about El and me.

I just drive for more than two hours until I get home, trying not to think about Liv or the "time machine". I prefer to think of El, our wedding, the house we are going to buy to live together. We haven't talked about the new house or children yet, but I know it will happen soon and I can't wait for it.

Chicago must be almost 46ºF when I get home. There is a considerable amount of snow on the road and this has made El anxious for the past few days. I can't help but notice her expression of relief when I arrive alive.

"Hey... how was your day?" she asks me and opens her arms to me and I accept her hug, making us lie down on the couch. Her skin is so hot compared to the weather outside.

"Boring. Dumb military people who only hear what they want..." I run my fingers through her hair and kiss her lips, which are the only ones I desire. "how was your day?" 

"Well..." I distribute some kisses on her neck while I wait for her answer. "Lucy invited me to dance at the opening tour."

"Oh really? I knew it!" I'm so happy for her. El was already thinking about the possibility of dancing at real school performance and I hoped that it would happen. It is so beautiful to see the effort and dedication that she has put in dance. With everything she does, actually. "You are the best psychologist in this country and now you will receive a medal for the best dancer... Oh and I forgot that you are also the hottest woman in the world... You can't get enough of stealing those decorations?" 

"Idiot." she kisses me again, this time with more intensity. The warmth of her lips and the taste of her mouth are so good, the way her tongue touches mine... I wish I wasn't so tired. She breaks our kiss and makes me a little sad about it. "You'll see me dance, won't you?"

"Of course I will!"

We ended up sleeping together on the couch, I didn't have much energy (and desire) to get out of her embrace. I think that if I had a choice, I would never leave.


	21. The Machine

Today is the day of El’s performance at the dance school and, in theory, I shouldn’t work, but Owens and I got a call from our boss last night, just over a week after Liv and her team arrived in Hawkins.

Owens and I have not yet discovered new information about the machine and Liv could only help us with what she already knew. I've been anxious and nervous ever since then.

So I decided to at least focus on El this morning before I have to leave very soon. I focus on taking care of her, how her hands are messing up all my hair now, her legs running over my shoulders, the strength I need to make to hold her hips, the sounds she makes every time I press her sensitive spot with my tongue and _holy shit,_ she tastes so good.

When she finishes, I go up to see her face and she is so red. She always does, ever since our first time together.

"Good Morning!" I say removing some of the hair that got stuck on her face because of the sweat. "Ready for the big day?"

"Hi!" She gives me a beautiful smile back. "Yes... Do we still have time before you go?"

"No..." I say just as I see the time on the bedside clock "Actually, I'm late. But I’m going back and we’re celebrating all night, okay?"

"Hmm, ok. You're going to see the presentation, aren't you? Don't forget your ticket, it's the first row."

"I will, I promise. Your performance will be the best of all times, I know it." I don't say it just to please her but because I'm sure. She has been working hard and I was able to watch her hard work.

This show is very important and I would love to spend the whole day here in Chicago supporting El, Lucy, and the entire school team, but I need to leave as soon as possible so I can try to get back early.

When I'm about to leave, El calls me back to hand me the coat I forgot, also kissing me goodbye. I try to leave again, but she holds me a little longer.

"Mike... Does Liv know we're together?" Her question takes me by surprise.

I decided to tell her that Liv started working at Hawkins and everything that happened at the bar, including the _almost kiss_.

El was not upset and I was relieved that she believed in me. I realized that the whole thing upset her a little, so I've been trying to be as present as possible. I don't want her to feel insecure about Liv or anyone else.

"Yes, she does," I say and kiss her lips one more time. "It won't happen again, I promise. She also promised, apologized and-"

"I know, I know, it's just..." _I'm jealous_ , I think. She takes a deep breath and I think she will tell me something important, but she gives up. "Anyway, I see you at the theater?"

"Yes ma'am! I will be there."

**\--------------**

Owens gets into my car with two large cups of coffee. He asked me to meet him on the way to Hawkins and give a ride.

I just said yes to him.

I want so badly to have someone to talk about what happens at Hawkins that Owens just became the closest person I could at least vent about work (in fact, he offered to hear me out). I can't talk to Olivia because I'm afraid of exposing her to the "bad men".

"Here you go, son," he tells me as he puts the coffees in the car's cup holder. "What's the soundtrack for today?"

"You choose" I am not excited today to drive for two hours in cold weather, so I don't mind about music.

I drive in silence for the first thirty minutes and notice that Owens remains quiet on the road as if he is thinking about something important. He also makes some notes in a notebook he brought in his briefcase.

"Michael, we need to talk." I get nervous as soon as he says it. I hate this expression. "Do you know how to use a gun? If so, how did you learn?"

"My friend works for the FBI and we practice shooting sometimes." To be honest, I hate guns, but Hopper taught me how to use it when El and I decided to live together. He said that I needed to know how to use a gun if something happened. Fortunately, I never needed one, but I asked Lucas to help me practice after I started working in Hawkins.

"Michael, you can trust me. Where's your phone?" he asks and doesn't wait for me to answer before start looking for my phone until he finds it in the glove compartment. "See, I'm turning off mine and yours. Do you know why? Because I don't want us to run the risk of being monitored. When you arrive in Chicago, buy another phone, one to use only with the people close to you, _especially Jane_."

"What?" I stop the car on a shoulder immediately. "What do you know about Jane? What do you know about me, Owens?"

"A lot and I can prove it, but you can or need to trust me. I know the blue bracelet on your wrist is a gift from Jim Hopper. Jane is his adopted daughter and all of her documents are kept in Shed 286, at a storage company far from the center of Chicago. I know this because I organized that space with Jim. I also know that Jane found out about that place and changed the lockers since my key no longer works there."

I don't know what to do after this, I can only register that I am on the verge of an anxiety attack. My whole body is shaking and my breathing is failing.

"Mike, son, calm down." Owens hugs me sideways and tries to calm me down little by little. "Breathe with me, in and out, slowly. It's okay, she's fine, she's safe and so is your sister. I need you to know that you can trust me."

Owens continues to hold me and I don't have multiple options but to take a deep breath with him. I know this will work because El has done this exercise with me several times.

Slowly I get to breathe better and my hands are no longer shaking that much.

"What do they know about them?" I ask, referring to El and Nancy. "Or about me?"

"Nothing. They are not interested in your personal life right now. The focus is opening that fucking door, Mike, it's not you..." He takes a deep breath and let go of me slowly. "I invited you because I know I can trust you. Jim trusted you more than you trusted me. El is not in danger because Jim and I have taken care of everything, all these years. Even her blood type is different on the official papers, don't worry. Trust me."

"But El and I are together, Owens."

"I know, this is why I need you to be careful, especially with your phone. Choose a place to drop it off every night and pick it up in the morning. They will track your location through it. If you do, they will think you live somewhere else, alone. I recommend that you rent a house here in Hawkins, just in case... At least for now."

"Do I need to leave El?" from everything I've heard so far, the idea of leaving El alone and being away from her is what scares me the most.

"It would be for the best, but it won't happen, will it? Just let me protect you." He seems calmer now and takes the notebook he had left in his briefcase. "Mike, they just want to open that door, so they'll use the machine. I'm afraid of them getting it and even more terrified of them not getting it... Son, they can go back to looking for Brenner's victims if they don't get it now... I only know Jane and Kali, but there are others. Unfortunately, I don't know where they are and I can't protect them."

"What do I do?" I ask but I'm afraid of his answer. I'm afraid I won't be able to do what I need to do.

"While in Hawkins, let them try. I still don't know what their moral limit is, but let's give them the opportunity, okay? Let's do this for now."

"Is Kali safe?" 

"Yes. She is being more quiet. She knows everything and I am taking care of her, don't worry. Just take care of yourself and Jane."

I need time to think about everything he told me, so I let Owens drive the car to Hawkins. I'm dying to call El, just to check if everything is fine and to hear her voice for a few minutes, but I know I can't.

On my way back, I'm going to stop somewhere and buy a new phone for both of us, just in case.

I think about Kali and how she has been different for months, avoiding the city parties and not fucking around. El is so happy for Kali's choice to “abandon destructive habits”, but she has no idea that this is due to Owens' influence.

I see the trees on the road to Hawkins turning spots in my vision because of the speed of the car, the snow on the road... I wonder if I should run away with El somewhere, maybe to Dublin, but she wouldn't want it. There's a lot of history in Chicago that she doesn't want to leave everything behind.

I don't have many choices but to trust Owens and hope the government gives up on me.

**\--------------**

It is still early when we arrive at the Laboratory and I remember El's performance tonight, and that I need to get out of here as soon as possible. I can't miss this show and I don't want to ruin her night.

"Owens, I have something important to do in Chicago at seven at night. Is it okay if we leave early? I can't be late..."

"Go ahead, I'll stay. Do not worry about me." He gives me the car keys back and pats me on the shoulder.

"Hey... we need to take care of Liv too. I don't know what they think or know about her and me..."

"I'll take care of her too, don't worry. Let's go."

We walk together to the principal meeting room and find there too, which means that the project she's working on is the same as mine. I give her a smile in greeting and she answers me in the same way.

It doesn't take long for the military to arrive in the room and begin the presentation. Three hours of delusions and lies about how promising this project is, how we will be advancing scientifically, how we will be a great nation in doing so. There is nothing extraordinary here, just a time bomb about to explode. Nobody knows what's on the other side or if we're going to be able to control whatever in there...

I am surprised to see that they show us a photo of Brenner as an inspiration for the “scientific” work. _"A fair and dedicated man who was brought down by defamations."_ Fucking clowns.

In the afternoon, a part of the team is taken to the basement of the laboratory. Owens and Liv came too, and I'm a little more relieved that at least I'm not alone.

A captain named Connor takes us to a bulletproof basement area, something they've set up in the past two days that I haven't been here. They also installed the machine and I observe how they start it: two keys are in a silver case that was carried by a young soldier. The head of engineering connects the keys to the panel while Connor starts his speech to us.

"Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Owens... thank you for your months of study and dedication. Despite negative reviews, we are not cowards. We will face whatever comes from the other side. Ms. Olivia Moss and Mr. Mendez have done great teamwork that will help us achieve our goals. I would like to thank each one of you."

I would like to punch him in the face at the very least. Liv looks nervous next to me and I take her hand in, an attempt to reassure her, even though I don't know exactly the reason for her nervousness.

Connor makes a sign to the soldier and that man Mendez to turn on the machine. And it works.

Interestingly, my phone vibrates at the same moment that the ground seems to start shaking, as soon as the machine's engines start to warm up. I don't know what drives me to approach the glass, but I needed to see it up close.

I notice that there are some people on the floor below, all with safety equipment, but too close and I wonder how dangerous it is. 

The lights suddenly go out and I can't catch who screamed in panic (maybe Liv?) because I can't stop looking at the damn machine, especially when a bright light comes out of it and goes towards the lab's wall. The pressure is so high that the isolation tank - that fucking tank - explodes and a part of the steel that surrounds it hits hard on the protective glass in the room where we are. If that glass was not armored, I would have died now.

I can see, thanks to the light coming out of the machine, that someone down there was hit by the tank fragments and other people are asking for help.

"Connor, turn off the machine," I ask, calmly, but he ignores me. "Connor, there's an injured person down there!"

"We'll work it out later, Wheeler. Look over there, it's opening." and it is. I start to notice that several cracks are forming around the gap and part of the wall is breaking. I don't believe this fucking machine is going to work.

"Turn it off, Connor," I ask, again, trying to remain calm. "It's too dangerous, there's a person down there needing help!"

"Sir, please turn it off!" Liv asks for it this time. "At least to help the team down there."

"Shut up!" he yells and pushes Liv, who almost loses her balance.

That's when I lose my temper for good and the next thing I know is that I did punch him in the face. As you can imagine, I also hear the sound of the weapons of the other two soldiers being wielded and aimed at me, but I don't have time to pull away or compose myself because I feel the impact of something very strong against my nose and terrible pain in my face.

I quickly lose the balance I had and fall onto the control table. Someone holds me right after, I don't know exactly who, but I even try to go back and hit Connor again when I realize that my face is full of blood.

"Mike, stop!" I only realize that I'm being held by Liv when I hear her voice, which competes with the noise of the internal alarm, the machine, and Owens yelling at Connor.

"For God's sake, Connor, that's enough!" he shouts at the shitty captain and I realize that everyone is watching him. "Turn this off now and behave decently!"

I take advantage that Owens and Connor are yelling at each other to pull out a key from the connector, turning off the machine. It seemed like a good idea at first, but Connor realizes and comes towards me.

"Don't you ever confront me again." he vocalizes his threat slowly, without looking away from me for even a millisecond and I do the same. He wants to test me, see how long I can take without showing fear.

After a few seconds, Connor turns and asks the soldier in the room to come down to help the person who was injured down there, while the sharp pain in my face comes back and I almost lose consciousness.

**\--------------**

_I will not arrive in time_ is what keeps repeating in my mind like a scratched record. _I won't make it, I won't make it_.

I spent almost an hour in the laboratory ward while a doctor pinched my nose and put on splints. Connor used his Gun-Butt to hit my face and, consequently, broke my nose, this is why I felt that intense pain and there was so much blood.

I almost lost consciousness until I reached the infirmary because the pain was unbearable, so Owens and Liv had to practically drag me over five floors of the building.

The person who was hit by the fragments of the isolation tank died. I already imagined this, since I saw the impact of a piece of the tank up close against the armored glass.

And I will not be able to see El's performance in time, that's what I think about most as Owens drives my car, taking us back to Chicago. The second thing that runs through my mind is that _I hate Connor_.

My phone starts to ring suddenly and I look at Owens, a silent plea to answer her this time, at least to talk to her for a few seconds. He gives a positive signal and I answer.

"Hi!" Her voice is exciting and so different from what I feel now. "Are you in Chicago already?"

"Hi... not yet. I'm going to be a little late. I'm so sorry."

"Oh... why?" the sound of her voice is so different from when we started the call.

"I fell, slipped in the snow, but I'm fine, I swear!" I try to sound less screwed on the phone, at least not to make her nervous before the presentation. "I fell on my face and hurt my nose badly, I had to go to the infirmary... But I'm fine, I promise. I took some painkillers and I'm using a bandage, but, I swear, I'm fine. Owens is driving the car, I'll be fine." 

El is silent for a while and I begin to feel what I was repressing in some way: fear, anxiety, frustration... I call her name again on the phone because I need to hear her voice again to calm myself down.

"Hi, I didn't miss the call... I'm here. Well, I will wait for you... I'll try, I mean." she laughs nervously at the comment. "I'll see you in the front row, right?"

"Right. I promise... I'm sorry."

"It's all right, love... I need to go, okay? Watch out for the snow."

I say goodbye to her and hang up, having no choice but to go back to the real world. I'm so late, it's already 6:10 pm and I haven't even arrived in Chicago. I still need to stop by the house and at least change my shirt, since the one I'm wearing is full of blood. I don't want El to see this, it will be terrible when she sees the damage on my nose.

Owens remains silent for a good part of the time, which makes me wonder how he must be pissed off at the way I acted with Connor, but honestly, I don't know what he expected. There was a person in urgent need of medical help, he shouted and pushed Liv away. My parents are not the best examples of raising and caring for children, but at least they taught me not to admit such attitudes.

I got home at 7:20 pm, 20-minute late. As I recall, Lucy should have a little chat with the audience before inviting El and the other dancers to the stage. I pray whoever is listening to me that Lucy decides to talk a lot tonight.

"I was thinking about what you did this afternoon, Mike..." Owens starts to talk when we are on the way to the theater, which is not that far away and should only take another ten minutes. "I understood why Hopper liked you so much. I also understood why she is so in love with you... You are a good person. Your sense of justice... I chose my work partner very well."

"Thank you, I guess?!" I say, embarrassed, but I just want to get to the theater soon, this all I can think about.

"You're welcome. I only ask for one thing, son. Don't let them get you on your nerves, don't let them see your weaknesses, your fears... They will use it against you. You will be disgusted by countless things and people from that place, just as I felt and still feel... But don't let them see you for real. Please. For you, for your sister, for El. Especially El.

**\--------------**

I manage to sit in the front row of the theater almost forty minutes after the start of the performance. Luckily, there was a pair of dancers who performed before the main performance, so I “just” missed El's five minutes.

Kali is in the chair next to me and looks at me ugly as soon as I sit down, but I ask quietly to ignore me for now and we will talk later.

El is beautiful, but not as usual. There is something special about her tonight, something that I can't explain exactly what, but I know that I'm happy. I'm glad to be here watching her repeat those steps she trained so many times and I was privileged to be able to watch her efforts at school. I cover my nose with my hand just in case she ends up seeing me during the dance.

For about twenty minutes I watch her dance with four other colleagues a classic by Tchaikovsky, a Russian guy I only know because of her.

She seems so light and sure of what she is doing and I can't help the bad thoughts that come around my mind again.

Will I be able to keep you safe? Will I be able to take care of her, take care of the future we want to build together, as well as the promise in the form of a blue bracelet on my left wrist?

Sometimes I wish we could live in a protective bubble, where doesn't exist Hawkins, government, military, conspiracies, or anything else that Brenner has caused her since her birth.

By the end, when the presentation is over and everyone applauds the team, she sees me in the front row and makes a sad face when she sees my fucked up face, but I return it blowing her a kiss and she makes a movement with her hand as if she had caught my kiss in the air.

She is so happy with tonight, with the applauses, for yet another achievement. As I watch her on stage thanking everyone, I decide on what I'm going to do from now on.

No matter what happens to me at Hawkins, even if one day I have to choose between her or me, even if one day I need to risk everything, I know who should be happy in the end.

It's her.


	22. What time is it?

I feel a twinge in my face, very close to my nose, and I realize that the painkillers I took on Hawkins are not working anymore. Early, I felt a little dizzy because of them, but I managed to keep an eye on the entrance to the pizzeria, which is incredibly crowded that night. We decided to come here after El's performance, so Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, El and Kali have joined us

I managed to deviate a little from the subject “your nose looks awful, Mike”, but Kali's constant gaze on me is making me nervous too. I know we’ve improved a bit in the last few months, but I still feel insecure when she’s around… Maybe because of her proximity to Owens, which even today doesn’t make any sense to me. 

I look away from the door when I feel El's hand poking my arm and catching my eye and I realize that she and Dustin are betting who can eat a slice of pizza faster, while Lucas is timing the time.

El wins.

I feel good seeing El happy tonight. Before I arrived in Chicago, I felt that I would ruin everything by being late for her presentation and showing up with a broken nose, but everything went well, I believe... And it's always good to hear her laugh out loud.

The pain comes back, a little stronger, and I pick up my glass of water and ice cubes and press it against my face, hoping it will help to ease the pain.

"Hey, are you okay?" El asks worriedly, as she takes some ice cubes from a small pot on the table and rolls it up in a napkin, placing it over my face and replacing the cold glass I had taken. "Is it hurting?"

"Not much," I reply trying to calm her down. "I think the painkillers' effect is wearing off, but it doesn't hurt that much."

"Mike, seriously did you fall flat on your face?" "Will asks curiously on the other side of the table and I give him a positive sign. "Damn... Thirty-six years old and you're still a messy bitch. Congratulations!"

"Thanks for your sweet words, Will. Never disappoint." I say as we laugh together. "The ground was slippery with snow and I was carrying some things when it happened."

"Really, Mike? It doesn't look like you got hurt from falling..." Kali decides to give her's _sweet_ opinion. Seriously, couldn't she wait for a better time to question me? I explained what “happened to me” as soon as the presentation was over, but I think she didn't really believe my story. "Looks like someone did that to you." 

It makes El strangely look at me as if she's looking for something more wrong in my face, but Max starts to speak and draws her attention back, saving my neck tonight.

"Kali, it looks like an accident," Max says she takes a sip of her beer shortly after. "Have you seen the size of his nose? It's huge, so it was easy to break." everyone at the table laughs at her comment. "Mike, I'll see if you did a good job with your nose back at Hawkins, okay?"

"Thank you, Max." I appreciate it, but I have the impression that she also doesn't believe in my story about falling and breaking my nose. However, for some reason, she decided to find a way to end this topic at least for a while.

"Well, Max, I like his big nose!" El says laughing too, but I think there's a little bit of truth here. "And now it's doubled in size, I'm even more in love!" 

I pretend to be mad, but only for a few seconds because El soon holds my face with both hands and kisses my lips, taking care not to hurt my nose again. I hear my friends' complaints at the table, but we know it's a joke.

We chatted for a long time until Max and Lucas had to leave to pick up the twins at their grandparents' house. I take advantage of when Lucas announces that he is going to the bathroom and I announced that I am also going, just to get a few minutes alone with him.

Luckily, the bathroom was empty when we entered, so I quickly tell him everything that happened at Hawkins.

"I don't think it was a good idea for you to punch a military man, but I don't know if it would be different..." Lucas tells me while washing his hands. "Look... You will need a new phone. I'll get you a good one, no chance of them getting to you using it, okay? Is yours there?"

"Yes." I take my phone out of my pocket and he puts it on the floor, stepping on top afterward. "Dude... what the fuck..."

"Mike, your ex-wife works with you and suddenly you show up at home with a new phone. It's a great narrative for conspiracy theories. Take advantage of the "fall" and say that the phone broke."

"It doesn't even make sense... Is Max jealous? El must not even think about those things."

"No, but a colleague at work was cheating on his wife and using another phone to talk to his lover. The whole story was so bad that I never forgot. Anyway, I'll get you a phone... And a gun."

A guy enters the bathroom and we stop talking. It's time to go back, anyway, so we left there together and went back to the table, where Lucas and Max say goodbye and leave shortly after.

I stay with Dustin, Will, Kali, and El for a few more hours before each one goes on their way home.

El is driving tonight, so she gets in the car before me, allowing Kali to get to be alone for a few seconds.

"I know it wasn't a fall. Tell her the truth, Mike." Kali just tells me that and goes in the opposite direction while lighting a cigarette, leaving me alone on the sidewalk.

**\------------**

I've been lying in bed for some time now, thinking about the person who died in the lab that afternoon and how this Connor is a motherfucker, unable to be concerned by the life of a teammate. Maybe I should have hit him more (I would probably be arrested or killed later).

I also follow the hands-on of my watch. Why do they spin nine times faster when I'm underground in the lab? I still haven't found an exact answer to that question.

"What time is it?" El asks me as she lies down next to me on the bed, wearing the blue sweatshirt that was mine one day, colored socks, and gray pants in contrast... her favorite combination of clothes to sleep on winter nights.

"Half-past one am." I answer her question while I make room for her to lie next to me. "Do you want me to increase the temperature of the room?"

"No, you're warm..." she practically lies on top of me and I hug her tight and cover us with the bedsheet. It is already dawn, but we can still hear the noise of cars on the streets and the soft touch of snow against our window. "I remember when my dad gave you this watch. He said to me “kid, you finally got a nice boyfriend, so I'm going to give him that old watch of mine, the _Dirty Dozen_. A classic!"... But he was unsure if you would like it or not." 

"It was the coolest gift he gave me... after you." we laugh a little at the memory and I realize that I'm missing Hopper here, more than before. I miss his presence and the security I had when he was around. Sometimes I feel like I lost my father instead of my father-in-law. "And the Dirty Dozen still works well... Hey, have you decided which dress to wear to our wedding?"

"No... My God, it's so hard to choose!" I feel her body move over mine as we laugh together. She is also playing with some hair on my chest that is not covered by my shirt. This is the craziest and weirdest habit El has. "I still have a month to choose, I promise that until then I'll decide which one to use... And you won't be able to see it before our wedding, so..." 

"I want to marry you today... right now. I don't want to wait another two months, you know?"

"I know, I'm also anxious... We could get married tomorrow and flee the country, what do you think?"

"Sometimes I think about doing it, really. But I like being around everyone, so... Oh, I think I'm going to invite Lucas to be my best man." 

"Ok... Will and Dustin are going to make a fuss." they will, I'm sure of it, but I feel that I should invite Lucas to this role. He was my first real friend, since kindergarten days. "Max and Lucas will be our godparents... Karen, Ana, and Peter will take our rings... Kali, Will, and Dustin will be the godparents of honor..." 

El is suddenly silent and I only realize the strangeness of this after some time. I change my position to get a better look at her face and I see that she has a sad expression, which worries me.

"Hey, are you okay?" I ask trying to make a quiet voice and she finally looks at me.

"Yeah, I just... I was just thinking about who will take me to the altar." that thought takes me by surprise too. Honestly, we hadn't thought of that. "It should be my father, but he is not here... he will not see us getting married." 

I don't know what to say to her. I'm sure Dustin or Will would love to take her to the altar, but I understand why she is sad now, it's not just about walking up to me before starting the wedding, it's about Hopper not being here with us.

I'm sad too. I don't know if my parents are coming to my wedding and I wanted someone with me when the day comes, someone who would do classic things like help me fix my tie or give a hug with a pat on the back. I wish Hopper could be there for me, even if he was wearing that awful mustache that he swore was intimidating.

I still don't know what to say to El, but I understand what she's feeling. I kiss her lips before I hug her and I caress her hair until she sleeps and I can allow myself to sleep too.

**\------------**

December 10, 2008. 2:23 pm. At least that's what my digital watch displays. The Dirty Dozen that Hopper gave me is in my pocket, probably with the hands-on spinning randomly, but I can't take it now and analyze the pattern because I'm in the Lab's basement with Liv, Owens and about fifteen other soldiers, including Connor, who looks at me with a cynical smile.

He finally got what he wanted, finally managed to open that door. And all the predictions that Owens and I made went wrong, but not because we failed in the analysis, but because we omitted that who _really_ controls that door is the one on the other side, not us. I decided that I would rather "admit my failure" than let them know about the control that the other side has.

And not only did they open this shit, but they put two little animals inside, two kittens trapped in steel cables to be pulled when Connor decides it's time. "Let's see if they come back alive," he said with a laugh. I know it's wrong, but I have been thinking a lot about pushing him to the other side and see if he comes back alive too.

"I don't see my great scientists on that happy afternoon!" Connor says and I take a deep breath so I don't lose my temper. "Wheeler, you've been a little sad since you realized you were wrong, man. Don't be like that, you still have your medals... Or maybe you're not having good sex. Get a girlfriend, man!" 

I keep my attention on the “gate”, as they decided to call it, and ignore Connor. Despite the viscous layer, which looks a lot like transparent skin, I can see something moving inside, some flashes of light. The ambient temperature has dropped a lot since then and we are all wearing oxygen masks because we still don't know how toxic this floor has become since they opened this portal.

It's dark too, we can barely use a generator, so we only have emergency lights.

"Wheeler," I hear Connor's annoying voice over the phone again. "Do you dare to go in there with me? Let's bet something... If we go in there and find something cool, we'll be brave guys, right? But whoever gets out of there first - and alive, of course - is entitled to have an entire night with our friend Olivia Moss. What do you think?" 

"I think you're disgusting, Connor." Liv answers and I shut up, I'm not going to take this moment from her, but I hope she smashes Connor. "First of all, you need to be very stupid to get in there, which we already know you are. Second, hero or donkey, I would never go out with you. All of your acts should be to compensate for a small dick and fragile masculinity. Not gonna happen." 

I could laugh now, especially since Liv made Connor uncomfortable, but it's been fifteen minutes since they put the cats over there.

"Pull the cats back, please," I ask the team directly, as Connor must push the limits again and I don't intend to lose my patience today. "We have enough time."

For some reason, Connor decides not to interrupt me, so the team pulls the steel cables back long enough to bring them back.

The first cable comes back with nothing, only with part of the pet's collar full of blood. I approach to see and regret it. Whatever exists on the other side killed the cat.

"Did the other became a ghost too?" Connor dares to say this laughing, but I prefer to wait for the team to pull the other cable.

The other cat is alive. Very wet, covered with something that looks more like a gel, shaking a lot. I grab a towel that was nearby and cover the little cat until someone comes to get it to check him.

The kitten shakes a lot, so I bring it closer to my body to try and warm it up. That's when I realize that its eyes are wide, alert. I watch carefully and his blood vessels are black. I look at his tummy and, again, I can see some veins under his skin, all are dark and altered.

Finally, someone takes the kitten out of my arms and takes it somewhere. I hope they can take care of it.

I can't help but approach the portal, something inside me makes me want to go madly there and find out what's on the other side. An unprotected cat came back alive, strange, but alive. Another may have been eaten by some animal.

"If we are armed and protected, we can put some cameras and monitor." someone speaks in the room, but I can only look at the portal. Something is pulsating in there, like an organ. The opening they made to pass the kittens has already closed.

"Maybe." I say in a whisper. The next thing I know is that I reach out to my arm enough to try to pass my hand through the slimy layer of the portal.

"Shall we go in, Wheeler?" Connor asks beside me and I don't know where my head was when I answered it.

"Let's go." 


	23. The Upside Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi!!! It took me a long time, I know. I'm just really busy and home office just makes me more tired than working at the office. Crazy, huh? How are you? I hope yall are safe. 
> 
> Let me know what are your thought on this chapter! :)

"You shouldn't do that, Michael, it's too dangerous!" Owens keeps talking while I put on the clothes they gave me in the lab.

"What do you want me to do? Let Connor go and record everything he finds there and share it with a bunch of psychopaths here?" I say to him, annoyed.

"How do you think it will stop you from something, idiot?" Owens practically screams in my face. "You get in that shit and you may never come back! There's no use trying to hide from them, there's no more, Michael!" 

"His brain is a fucking egg, Owens, I can do this shit!" I shout back because, at that moment, Owens looks a lot like my dad and his constant disbelief about me. "I'm wearing two watches, remember? Owens, that is a parallel reality, we know that. What can happen from now on? What can get out of there and come to us? I need to know!" 

"And what do I do if you don't come back? What do I say to your family, what do I say to _her_?"

"I will come back. I have no option but to return, Owens. You already put me here, why do you think you'll be able to get me out now?"

He doesn't answer my question, probably feeling too guilty about what is happening now. But I have no option but to go there.

"I don't know what I'm going to find in that place, I'm not sure that I'll be able to get out alive. The only certainty I have is that I will do everything I can to get back because I promised the most important person in my life that I will marry her on January 22, 2009. But if for some reason I can't, Owens, I just ask you to get her out of this country." 

I finish putting on my protective clothing and leave the room, leaving Owens alone. I honestly do not see any alternative but to go there and understand what is happening, even if it is very risky. Even worse, I think, is allowing them to have control over everything that happens here.

I hear Owens' hasty footsteps and conclude that he is following me to the reserved area, where other soldiers and agents are preparing to break through the wall.

I meet Liv as soon as I reach the main basement room and she hugs me as soon as she realizes my presence.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks me a little distressed and I can't let myself feel guilty.

"Trust me, Liv. Everything will be fine in the end, okay?" I try to calm her down as much as I can, especially since I will need her help when I get back from there. I take my digital watch off my wrist and hand it over to her. "Hey, I need you to do something for me, it's very simple... Just check the time and see how long I'm going to be there. Record what I say in a personal notebook, okay? Don't show it to anybody." 

I don't doubt Liv's help and I know that, from everyone here, she is the only one I can trust with my eyes closed.

Liv doesn't know about El and the connection to that lab, and I'm probably never going to tell her that. It is an unnecessary exposure and, while she is connected to this place, she should know as little as possible.

"Be careful when you're there... Don't trust Connor." she tells me while putting the watch I gave you on her wrist. "Don't be afraid to defend yourself if you think you need it."

"Okay, I'll, I promise. Thank you."

We pull away when Connor and some government officials arrive at the office and begin the check before we enter.

**\----------**

Connor goes beyond the viscous layer before me and I understand that it takes me longer to overcome this barrier because of the lack of custom with protective clothing. In addition to it, I am carrying a couple of weapons that the team gave me, ammunition, and an oxygen cylinder.

There is a forest on the other side, a dark, cold, abandoned forest. I can hear some faint scratching noises and I assume it is from an animal.

Some things float in the air, like feathers or snowflakes, and I remember when Owens took me underground in the lab and a “feather” had taken my direction for floating towards what was just a breach. I remember my watch and I take it in my pocket, watching the hands-on, which move in the same pattern as I had observed, nine times faster. I make a mental note to remember that I am still close to the portal and that perhaps this pattern works only here.

Connor signals to me and we follow the other companions. We are all attached to steel cables, to pull us back if any shit happens. And I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that nothing will happen here.

"What do you guys see?" I hear Owens over the phone, but the signal is very weak and his voice is barely audible.

"It's a dark forest, winter weather. It looks quite abandoned... as if it were, I don't know, trillions of years old." I answer and hope he is listening to me.

"Was this gate just a shortcut to the lab's backyard?" someone makes a joke on the radio. "If so, the president will be very disappointed... There is a lot of money involved here."

"Keep walking, ladies. You will not get anywhere at this rate." Connor yells at someone and all the other guys on the team shut up.

I have the impression that we have been walking for about twenty minutes. The ground is a little slushy and I see some bones as I walk, which is strange. If this place were so abandoned, these bones would be gone already.

Some trees have openings in the trunk, some giant broken eggs, always covered with something like cobwebs. _What the fuck?_

Someone asks over the radio if we hear a noise like a growl, but I say no. I look at the watch Hopper gave me again, and this time the pattern is different, the hands-on taking too long to count just one second.

I wonder if the time inside is slower here than outside.

We continued walking for some time until we reached a place with houses. _Houses_. All of them dirty, broken, abandoned, but not destroyed enough to look like they were built centuries ago. At most, these houses appear to be in their forties.

There's an entire condo.

"We must split up," Connor speaks and I reject the idea immediately. "Group A enters one of these houses, while group B stays here, to arrange a meeting point. Group C is just Mike and me, let's move on."

"I think it's too dangerous, Connor."

"I disagree. Go ahead, boys." he gives the order, and, being the commander of the team, everyone obeys. It's stupid to split up now, but there's not much I can do.

As we walk, I observe some roads when I have the feeling of having already seen somewhere, but I don't know why or how. We passed a house in the middle of the forest, with a swing in what should have been a garden.

This place looks like something both current and old at the same time. I think about talking about it on the radio with Owens, but only now I realize that I lost the signal. I am alone with Connor in this place and silenced. Instinctively or not, I unlock the gun I'm carrying and hope I don't have to use it today, at least not against Connor.

"We lost communication," I inform my colleague and he seems nervous as soon as he tests his radio. My watch indicates that we've been here for less than five minutes, but I feel like I've been here a lot longer. Does this disprove my hypothesis that the time here could be slower? Or maybe it depends on where I am.

Or maybe it's the terrible feeling that this place brings me as if I'm surrounded by death.

Connor looks extremely scared or maybe it's the lack of light coupled with the protective mask we're wearing, but I decide to move on, with or without him, until we reach another point in the forest where everything is much darker and more abandoned.

I'm about to turn around and look out for Connor when I feel the pressure from the steel cable break. I think my colleague felt it too, as he positions the gun and seems to be ready to shoot whatever appears here.

"Mike." I turn around quickly, scared. The voice that called my name is not Connor's or any of the soldiers who were accompanying us. "Dad..." I hear the voice again. It's from a girl and I think she's crying. I start walking towards that voice, but I can't find anyone. And as I walk, I end up breathing faster and faster. Bad time to have an anxiety attack, Mike.

I have the impression that I see a light flashing not too far away when I hear a shout next to the sounds of gunshots and a loud growl. I turn around at the very moment and I see something I can't identify pushing Connor to the floor.

I run to him to get closer and shoot at what's on top of him. It looks like a tall, extremely thin man, but I get scared when I see its face open in bands as soon as the shots hit it.

The creature makes a horrible sound, mixed with Connor's screams. I feel like I'm in a fucking nightmare. He gets up and comes towards me, but I think my gunshots are useless until something explodes the creature's head. It was Connor, who shot something with a large-caliber weapon.

I don't have much time to feel the slightest pressure when I see something that looks like a big dog pulling Connor by his legs, at such an absurd speed that not even the bullets of my gun have managed to reach at the time.

At that moment, I realize that I am alone here and hear another roar. The distant light flashes once more and I head towards it, as fast as I can, but I end up stumbling over something.

In someone, actually. I do not know who is this person, but I decide to hold it's body by the arms towards the light, which I have already realized that it is from a lamp placed in a kind of hut.

The person's body is too heavy, but I manage to get us both to the cabin as fast as I can. When I get us in, I see that everything is broken and part of the ceiling was destroyed by something very huge, very strong. A lot of things are broken. Looks like this happened less than a year ago.

I try to keep silent as soon as I enter and lay down the person I got with me. I walk around the old cabin, going to each room in the cabin trying to find anything. To my relief, we are alone.

The cabin has a small room and some old drawings on the wall, so I assume it may have been a child's... but a child in this place?

In the "living room", I notice that there is an ashtray on the table, so at least the child was accompanied.

I remember the person I dragged with me and I go get the kit with another small oxygen cylinder and a mask from my backpack. I turn around the body, hoping this person is still alive so I can take him out of here with me.

But the face I see is too scary for me.

It's the face of someone I haven't seen in _years_. Not just five years, because his hair is not as white as I've seen the last time. And that ridiculous mustache is still there, but decades younger.

I react badly, very badly. Hardly enough to forget what to do here and not be able to think clearly how I will - how we will - get out of here.

And I can't think of anything because, for the first time in five years, I see _Hopper_.

My hands are shaking so much that it takes me longer than usual to connect the oxygen mask to the cylinder and finally put it on Hopper's - _Hopper_ \- face so that he can breathe.

I look at his clothes, something like a military coat from some foreign country. I rest my fingers on his wrist and I can feel that he is alive. He's wearing a watch and I take his arm to see the time there. It is 4:34 pm and the mini calendar marks the 6th, but today is December 11, 2008.

I look around trying to find something that can help me help Hopper, but I find nothing but broken and dirty things. I go to the room I visited before and open the drawers, but I can't find anything inside.

Unintentionally, I end up seeing myself in a dirty mirror in the room and I look _terrible_ but no worse than the little boy in the dirty photo stuck in the mirror frame.

Another hypothesis forms in my mind: this place is hell and probably affects the sanity of those who end up here because _I am crazy_. There is no other explanation for what I am seeing in the photo.

Because I see myself in it.

Me, about 12 or 13 years old wearing a Ghostbusters outfit at the door of a house. If “my age” in the photo is right, it was taken around 1984.

I hear a noise, a groan, and run back to what must have been a room one day, where Hopper tries to get up and is without the fucking mask I put on his face. I reach over to hold him, but he pushes me weakly. I don't know how long he's been here. I don't even know if it's real or if this place is messing with my mind.

"My daughter." He whispers. I think about El, how she would react being in my shoes now. "My daughter."

"El?" her name comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. He shakes his head in a positive sign for me. He knows El. "What happened to El?"

"You won't... She won't come back to you." his voice is too weak and I don't have time to argue with him because, once again, the sound of one of those animals is close to us, so I drag him to the child's room and hide him there, with the oxygen mask on his face.

I leave the room holding my most aggressive weapon in position, slowly and trying to keep silent, also hoping that this weapon is as effective as the one Connor was using before he was dragged by that creature.

When I approach the window, I can see one of those animals coming closer. It looks like a dog, but its head is divided into bands, just like that monster with an almost human body that attacked Connor for the first time. They seem to smell something in the direction of the cabin.

I think of what they may be sniffing. Me or Hopper? Or the two of us, which makes it even harder to get out of here with him. I need to put my mind to work.

If these creatures act like wild animals, what could attract them?

_Blood._

And my clothes are stained with blood, probably from Connor and that monster-human.

I look around more calmly and realize that there's only one of those dogs. To the left of the cabin, I can see that a person is probably dead and I can tell from the outfit that he is one of the soldiers who came with me.

I can't give the dog enough space to get in here, so I remember all the tips Lucas gave me while we were practicing, so I manage to shoot creature and the next thing I see is it's head exploding because of the caliber of the bullet. 

I take advantage that we have no company and go to the dead soldier near the cabin. I take off his protective clothing, the oxygen cylinder, the weapons, and go back to the cabin. This should be useful for Hopper.

"Listen, I can help you. For how long you are here?" I tell him, but I don't know if he can hear it because he seems too disoriented. He can't answer me, he probably lost track of time. "Use this, hold the gun. If we find something on the way, some animal or something-"

"Demogorgon?" he has a cynical smile on his face when he talks about it. This place must be driving me crazy. There is no chance that Hopper will use a reference from Dungeons and Dragons.

"Yeah... Demogorgon. You come with me, okay? Stay with me all the way... I think we'll be able to get back."

"I'm not going to the lab." he managed to take my gun and point it in my direction. "Nor my daughter. You will not take me there." he says while coughing several times.

"Wheeler!" I hear a voice outside and recognize that it is from one of the soldiers who accompanied us.

For a moment, Hopper weirdly looks at me, as if he's happy and angry at the same time. Maybe he knows who I am. Maybe he knows who I am and believes that I am on their side.

Which makes me wonder what they would do with _this Hopper_ in front of me. It changes everything I planned.

"Wheeler! Connor!" I hear someone shouting my name, this time closer. I don't have much time, so I do the first thing that comes to mind.

"Hopper, it's me, Mike. You can kill these monsters by using this gun, use them. Do not remove the oxygen mask. Stay here. I'll be back, ok?" He keeps looking at me, but at least stops pointing the gun at my head. "I will come back."

I leave the cabin, leaving Hopper there, in the child's room, and go to meet whoever was looking for me. He's one of the soldiers who came with me.

"Are you alright? Where's Connor?" He asks me, but I just say that I'm fine and that one of those creatures probably killed Connor.

We are both far from the other colleagues and without communication, but the soldier next to me knows the way back and tells me another person is waiting for us at the meeting point, in that abandoned condo. The idea is to move on together and meet there as soon as possible.

I just follow him.

As I walk, I look back once more and can see that light on in the cabin and imagine Hopper in the child's room, and only then I understand him.

El and Hopper lived together in a cabin in Hawkins for just over a year after he rescued her from the lab and the bad men. The child's room is El's room. She met me at some point and I must have been important since there was a picture of me trapped in the mirror frame.

But who am I here, in this place? Or who did I go to? Where is she and what does Hopper do here?

I don't have an answer to these questions, none of them. I just walk with the soldier beside me towards Hawkins' lab, with the certainty that I need to get back here.

I need to get Hopper out of here.


	24. 14 Hours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! How are you? :)  
> I hope you enjoy this chapter :)

I hate this place.

As if it wasn't enough to have to work here for months, lying to federal agents and putting my entire career at risk, I am now stuck in a room that looks more like a prison.

It has been almost three hours since I left the other side with two more soldiers who also survived that place. To my surprise, time is different there. Our adventure lasted for us about thirty or forty minutes, but for the real world, we were stuck in that place for fourteen hours.

Fourteen hours stuck on the other side. Maybe that's why Hopper is still alive in that place?

I don't know. I can't concentrate enough to do the math or try to understand why and how Hopper is alive. My mind is divided between trying to decide if what I saw is real, what are those things that killed Connor and eight other soldiers that accompanied us, what is that place and, what worries me most, how and where is El right now since I haven't slept at home and she hasn't heard from me in almost twenty hours.

I was unable to speak to Liv or Owens after I returned from that place, they took me straight to the hospital floor, where they took samples of my blood and urine, in addition to having me go through a horrible detox and exhausting interrogation.

As if that weren't enough, they left me in this room with a fucking radio that keeps playing that damn song I hate.

So here I am, almost three hours in a white room listening to _Captain Of Her Heart_ , almost twenty hours without talking to El or any of my friends, anyone who can at least stay with her until I get out of here.

_I need to find a way to talk to El_ , I think. How am I going to tell her about Hopper? Maybe I shouldn't say anything, at least for now... Or maybe never. That is not the Hopper that we knew, that is much younger. It is not her father.

I can't think about what to do. I feel so confused, so lost, that immense frustration makes me kick the only chair in the room away from me. It makes me punch the radio until I see it break into a thousand pieces.

I wonder if El felt that way when she was stuck in that place and a tremendous sadness overtakes me just thinking about it, combined with the helplessness feeling that I have now.

I remember El telling me that I need to let my emotions flow, so I lean my back against the wall and allow myself to cry because it hurts so much to know that I am away for so long, for having seen that creature kill Connor, for having seen Hopper alive and yet not knowing if he is real or not, if it is the Hopper I know or not, for not knowing what to do from now on.

So I only allow myself to cry here for a few minutes until Liv enters the room and comes over to me, offering me a hand to get up and I leave with her.

**\---------**

I watch the snowflakes fall on the car as Liv drives us towards her home. I'm going to find El there.

After three hours without news from me or the team that accompanied me, Liv decided to use my private phone to call El and let her know that I was "managing unexpected work problem” which required me to stay in Hawkins later than I expected, resulting in me being late to go back to Chicago. This calmed El down for a few hours.

But after a few more hours without news, El came to Hawkins with an absurd idea of looking for me in the lab, but she had a panic attack as soon as she got in the building's parking lot. Luckily, Owens found her and took her to a safe place until Liv could help her.

"How is she?" I ask quietly again, in a foolish hope that Liv's answer will be different from the last time I asked.

"Not good..." it hasn't changed. "Maybe I made it worse instead of helping. I don't know... I think she realized that I was lying, that I didn't know where or how you were... She didn't sleep last night."

"I imagine. And you didn't make it worse." I try to sound as stable as possible while talking to Liv because, of all the people there, she is the only one I trust, especially when El is involved. "Look... El shouldn't have come here or gone to the lab. Some things happened to her when she was a child and that place wouldn't do her any good because... Anyway, it was a bad idea."

"I know, she told me." I look at her surprised this time ad I try to imagine what El telling Liv about Hawkins. "She told me that her mother died, so her father raised her in the lab... Until he died and a policeman adopted her. Her biological father wasn't a nice guy, was he?"

"He was the worst." I say. Remembering Brenner will only make me feel more distressed, so I change the subject. "Liv, thanks. For everything... Especially for taking El to safety."

"Ah, it's ok! I would do it all over again for you two." she smiles at me and I remember why we got married years ago: Liv is one of the best people I have ever met. It just makes me feel more guilty for being such a bad partner. "You are my friend and I understand you. Don't worry, Mike."

When Liv finally parks in front of her house, she takes my arm before I get out of the car. She hands me a notepad and the watch I had given before entering that place.

"I made some notes and marked the times as you asked me... They don't know it, don't worry."

"Thanks, Liv."

"You're welcome. Go find El, I need to go to the market. I will leave you alone."

She holds me so tight that I almost lose my balance, but I return her embrace with the same intensity. I missed her so much. I try to focus on remembering her characteristics that usually comfort me, but I can't think about it because she is crying a lot and asking me a thousand questions almost at the same time: if I am fine, if I am hurt, if they did something against me, if I can go home with her...

I try to get her to hear my answers, but I doubt she heard any of it, and I understand. I would act the same way if it were El in that place and I spent almost a day without hearing of her.

After a few minutes, she is calmer but I feel that this is not the right time to talk about what happened, so I give a generic explanation, hiding everything about the other side and _who_ is there.

**\---------**

Driving back to Chicago was harder than I imagined.

El and I stayed in Hawkins, at Liv's place, for a few hours after lunch. Seeing El and Liv interacting with each other was bittersweet, in a way I can't yet explain, but I like to know that they don't see each other with any trace of animosity or anything like that. Liv is a great friend to me and El is the person I love the most in the world. I think it will always be like this, and I'm grateful to have two amazing women around.

Liv told me that Owens managed to convince the agents in the lab to get me out of work until the next Monday, so I'll be able to stay three days straight at home, which made me think of Hopper in that place during this time.

And that's exactly why driving for two hours without trying to figure out how to get Hopper out of that place made everything harder for me.

I could've let El drive halfway, as she proposed when we were getting ready to go home, but she slept in the seat after twenty minutes on the road, so I let her rest.

When we arrived in Chicago, I made a quick stop at a restaurant we liked and ordered a dinner for both of us, which granted me a very surprised El at dinner. Something good, after all.

Now, all the windows in our apartment are closed, we can hear the sound of the snowstorm outside, but we’re comfortable on the living room couch watching some movie that I haven’t been watching it because I keep thinking about Hopper and how I'll get him out of that place while studying the notes Liv made on my notebook, trying to interpret the incongruities of this reality and the other.

The most difficult thing is to get to the other side and rescue Hopper, without being noticed. I think of who could help me with this. Owens, Liv... Lucas? I know Lucas would help me, but he has a wife and two daughters. I'm afraid something bad will happen to him in that place.

"Mike?" I hear El's voice very close to my ear. I'm half sitting between her legs, resting my back on her body. "What is it you're writing so much in this notebook?"

"Boring stuff about physics." I reach out to kiss her lips. "I thought you were interested in the movie. Is it that bad?"

"It's not bad... I'm just worried about you. Since that day you came home injured... and what happened yesterday..."

I look away to another corner of the room as she speaks. I think I was being a fool all this time believing that El wouldn't realize that _I was lying_ about falling and getting hurt or having an “unexpected work stuff” that made me out of range.

As I look away, I see a picture of us in the frame. In it, I see El and me together on this couch, laughing and showing off our engagement rings, the same ones we've been wearing for years. She took this photo the night she proposed to me.

Perhaps it is better to speak the truth or at least a part of it. Maybe it's the best thing to do, for me, for her, for our relationship. I don't want to lose her trust in me.

"I didn't fall that day." I look El in the eye again this time. "They invited Liv and other engineers to build a machine that could open a hole in a wall at the Hawkins Lab... On the day of the first test, there was an accident and that isolation tank burst... a team member was close to the machine and was hit by a piece of the glass. It didn't hit me either because I was in a protected area. An army captain was coordinating this test and he didn't want to turn the fucking machine off even after seeing a seriously injured person down there. Liv and I asked him to stop, to turn off the machine, and send someone to help the injured person and he refused. He shouted and pushed Liv away. I punched him and he hit me in the face. That's how my nose broke."

"And you didn't tell me because...?" she doesn't seem upset or disappointed with me, her expression is neutral.

"I didn't want to bother you with this, it was your night... I didn't want to ruin it." she quiet, but she's thinking about something and has an unreadable look on her face, which is strange. El hates lies. El also knows perfectly well when I am hiding something or lying, precisely because I never do it and it's very easy to notice by my embarrassment. I wonder why she is silent for so long and with an expression of... guilt? I don't know. I decide to talk about yesterday and today. "They got what they wanted, they opened a "gate". I expected something serious to happen, at least it would happen in a normal situation, but what is on the other side of that wall is controlling everything, energy, time, radiation... everything. It's almost normal going down there. The point is, I and a few soldiers went to the other side to see what was there. Only me and two other soldiers managed to get back." 

"What? Why did you get in there?" I complained about her neutrality when I shouldn't have done that. Now she is at least furious. "What happened to you, Mike?"

"I needed to go there! I can't let a bunch of psychopaths have access to everything in that place, I can't! There are dangerous things and I still don't know how much time I have to solve this, to stop those guys and save him, El!"

"Save who?"

"No one! And everyone! It is a fucking gate to another reality, El! I was there for a maximum of forty minutes, which cost more than fourteen hours here! It is an abandoned place, almost like a cemetery. Every inch of that place feels like death, there are some strange creatures there that ate my colleagues alive and I will not let them invade that place until whatever is on the other side kills us too. So I need to find a way to end everything before they take over that place or find you, okay?"

I only realize that I am no longer in her embrace or on our couch when I stop talking. I am on my feet and I spoke too loudly to her as if I were fighting. She is still sitting on the couch, and this time, I see the expression of disappointment that I feared. Disappointment and anger.

"And who gave you the role of the hero of humanity? Liv? Owens? Or yourself?" she doesn't look at me and her voice is harsh. "Why do you act like this? What do you want to prove and to whom, Mike? You are acting like you are still sixteen and Nancy just left home and you're alone with an inert mother and a useless father, so you think you can act as you want as if no one cares about you?! You will return to a place full of creatures that ate your colleagues alive, as if it couldn't cost your life too but, oh, wait! It's okay because no one will suffer for your sudden death, Mike? Is that what you think? Like I didn't panic here for hours thinking they had done something to you? Because, it's not enough that he killed my mother and tortured me all this time, now you're going to let his insanities to take you too?"

"I'll stop them!" I scream back to her but I know, deep down, that she's right. There is a selfish desire that pushes me to this self-destructive place.

"You won't!" she shouts this to me as if she was expelling an old frustration from her. "They won't stop it until they find me and have me back, dead or alive, Mike. 'Opening doors' was exactly what Brenner wanted me to do, that's why he drugged me and put me in that fucking tank every day for twelve years!"

She never told me what Brenner wanted with her, not explicitly. Now that I know, I feel sick. I think of something to say or do so today doesn't end as a big shit, but I can't. Nothing comes out of my mouth, my brain doesn't seem to work well either.

The only reaction I have is to follow El as soon as she leaves the living room and heads towards our bedroom. I call her name a few times, but she ignores me and I take her by the arm, but she pushes me in a completely disproportionate force, causing my body to hit the corridor wall. It wasn't strong enough for me to get hurt, that wasn't her intention either, but it was a different kind of force.

For the first time since we met, El used her mind against me, to physically distance her from me. I still had time to watch when she enters our bedroom, closing the door and locking it, everything with her mind.

Today turned out to be big shit anyway.


	25. The Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Kali and Mike in the pic I put on this chapter. I hope you like it! :)

Of all the people I could go to and ask for help, I never imagined that Kali would be one, or that I would be at her house late at night because El and I had a horrible fight and I need to solve all my problems in record time.

I didn't want to stay home after what happened to El, so I took my backpack and filled it with things from work, books, notebooks, pens... Things that I'm using now while I think of a plan to save Hopper from that place.

I've spent some time driving around the city and thinking about what she told me, about me acting like there are no people who care about me... as if I want to prove something to someone all the time.

I think she's right, somehow. I didn't think much about her or my friends when I decided to go into that place. I didn't even think about my sister, I just offered to go there.

But I can't allow them to have control of something in that proportion. It's not just about scientific knowledge, it's about political power. The intentions are the same that Brenner had during MK Ultra.

Maybe it's because of Brenner that I ended up coming to Kali's house tonight and now I'm seeing her filling a glass with whiskey and sitting on the chair across from me.

I told Kali everything that happened at Hawkins, except for my meeting with Hopper. I also told her everything that happened to El, all the things she said to me. To my surprise, Kali hadn't said anything... until now.

"So you want to go back there... for what, exactly?" she asks me after some time in silence watching me, which made me extremely uncomfortable.

"I need to get something I left behind. It's important... I can't lose it and I need to get it before them... The problem is getting in and out of there without them noticing..." saying this out loud made I realize it's very likely that I won't be able to. "And El doesn't want me to go there."

"She just doesn't want to lose you... Look, Michael, it's complicated. You and El are both right and wrong...She can't decide what you can or not do, but you can't just do things likes this without thinking about who stays here...

"I wasn't going to die, stop it-"

"No? Like, there's no chance of you getting out of there hurt at the very least?" She gives one of her sarcastic laughs and I start to consider the possibility of leaving. "You want to go to a place full of military people, in at an entire floor protected by several federal agents, to get something in an alternate reality that you discovered, where you saw your colleagues being killed, but wait! El being worried about you? Pathetic! It’s not necessary because it’s easy, isn’t it?"

I remain silent, but I confess that I am trying to contain my growing frustration and anger. Getting Kali's speech is the last thing I wanted, especially today.

I am tired, nervous, unhappy, anguished. I can't stop thinking about Hopper in that place, but I can't concentrate enough to get a plan to rescue him. I am tired of Kali's loud silence because it is undoubtedly her judgment against me. But I don't criticize her for that. Somehow, I deserve it.

"Maybe I should go, I don't even know why I came here." I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

"You know why you came to my house today, but it is too difficult for you to admit that you need my help. Get in and out of a place without being seen... Who, besides me, can help you not to be seen? Why is it so hard for you to admit that I can help you?" 

"Because I don't know if I can trust you." I regret it as soon as I finish saying it, even though it is true.

Kali and I had been civil to each other for the past few months, but we never talked about how Kali is at least partially responsible for El's overdose in 2006. I don't think I ever wanted to talk to her because I also felt guilty for what happened, for leaving El alone in a fragile moment.

I regret bringing on this subject not only because of my guilt, but because it's unfair, even if I mention it indirectly.

"I know," she says before drinking all the whiskey in her glass. "Every day I think about what happened... I remember waking up on that couch and seeing you leaving the apartment with El in your arms, how she was in the hospital... I think about it every day. And I want to help you destroy that place because only then will I be able to be truly free and forgive myself for everything I have done, only then will I be able to move on."

"Sorry... for not being able to forgive you and for being a pain in the ass sometimes."

"You're an asshole." we laugh and I start to feel zero point one percent lighter. Kali takes out my notebook and my pen, writing something on a blank sheet of paper. "What do we need to get in there?"

**\-----------**

My watch reads 7:15. It's Saturday and I'm on a road that divides Chicago and Hawkins. In five minutes I will meet Lucas, Liv and Kali.

Somehow, Kali and I managed to come up with a plan to get into Hawkins' Lab. She will get a car with a fake license plate, while Lucas will provide weapons, ammunition and vests. He didn't even question my phone call late at night when I asked him to follow me to a dangerous place. I still don't know how I feel having him involved in this, but I know that my priority will be to protect him in that place., whatever it takes.

Liv, my undeclared guardian angel, didn't suspect my questions about how a building's electrical power system would work. She may help me turn off some of the lab's power, affecting the security system and turning off cameras and alarms.

This morning is too cold and I think about how I would love to be in my bed right now.

Last night, when I got back home, I noticed the bedroom door was open and El was sleeping on "my side" of the bed. She was not wearing one of my shirts or coats, as she always does, and realizing that made me feel sad.

She didn't cover herself either, and the bedroom window was open, making a cold draft circulate there. I closed everything and covered her with the thick duvet that was on the bed. I wanted to sleep hugged with her, both because of the cold and the longing I was feeling, but I thought maybe she didn't want that, considering the argument we had earlier. I fell asleep beside her, but without physical contact.

I left the house very early, so I didn't see her wake up. I hate fighting with her because everything around me makes me think about it or her. Like when I started the car and started playing a song that she's been addicted to since she first heard it a month ago. A sad song from a weird band that she liked and bought the CD.

 _And soon everybody will ask what became of you_  
'Cause your heart was dying fast  
And you didn't know what to do

That part was going around in my mind for a long time while I was driving.

An unknown car approaches me and I get a little worried, but the feeling wears off when I see that Kali is the driver and Lucas is with her. At the same time, I notice that Liv is entering the cafeteria that we agreed to meet.

I get inside the coffee shop before Lucas and Kali. It is a simple cafe, empty and old, with lots of wooden furniture and some pictures on the wall with people who may not even be alive anymore. It looks like this place has gone on for generations. It is a stark contrast to classic Chicago coffee shops.

Less than ten minutes after entering, I am at a table with my best friend, my ex-wife and my sister-in-law... Wow.

"So, Mike..." Kali starts talking as soon as the waiter leaves our table and goes to prepare our orders. "I explained the story to Lucas on the way, so we can speed up. And you are Olivia, aren't you? Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." I watch as Liv and Kali shake hands. "Well... Mike, I studied what you asked of me. I got a blueprint of your mysterious building in the library, which could only be the one we work, and I made some notes here." she gives me a folder with a lot of papers. Shit... I didn't remember that Liv can get things out so fast. "There's a control room... I can get in there, but I don't know how long we're going to be able to hold on this. How much time do you need? What are you going to do?"

"I'm going back there, on the other side." As expected, Liv seems surprised to hear my idea, but she holds her speech when she notices the presence of the waiter bringing our drinks. She waits for the boy to leave to start talking.

"What's wrong with you, Mike?" she asks me quite indignantly.

"We've been trying to figure this out for years, Olivia." Lucas gives his morning contribution and I make a face at him.

"I left something there and I need to get it before our colleagues." I answer briefly and notice that I feel uncomfortable for calling Hopper a "something". The smooth jazz playing on the radio at the roadside coffee shop is also a bit annoying. "It is very important to go there and get it as soon as possible. I thought of going there Monday, the day after tomorrow an-"

"We need to go in there tomorrow," Lucas says and swallows a lot of hot coffee. Weirdo... "Tomorrow is Sunday and I think it should be less busy, and consequently, less risky for us."

"Tomorrow is Sunday, man. El does not work, so she will realize that I will spend hours away from home, and I'll be in deep shit."

"El will choose her wedding dress tomorrow, with Max."

The moment I saw Hopper in that place, I knew I needed to get him out of there. When and how to do this has always been around in my mind, but how much it could cost me or be afraid to go back to that place has never crossed my mind.

They never crossed my mind until now.

Suddenly, I'm starting to think about not going there, I'm starting to feel afraid that I won't be able to return, that something will happen to me or my friends, that I won't see El wearing the wedding dress next month.  
The silence that settled across the table is also frightening to me. Kali's eyes are glazed somewhere far away, but sad. Liv looks uncomfortable. Lucas has me with a sad look in his eyes.

"So it's better tomorrow," I say, breaking the silence and trying to stay firm. "December 15th."

**\-----------**

"Are you confident?" I hear Lucas asking me as he drives my car back to Chicago. We spent more than an hour in the coffee shop rehearsing what we'll do. All schedules, movements, communications are combined.

"I don't know... But I don't want to think about it too much, you know? I know Kali is going to help a lot, but I get anxious for Liv. I didn't want her to go in there, I just wanted help to understand their electrical system."

"She won't be taking too much risk, calm down. Olivia is very smart, if she got into it it’s because she knows what to do. Of all of us do... but I worry about you the most." He shrugs when I stare back at him. "Look, Liv knows what to do, Kali has her _gift_ , I have police experience... what about you?"

"I know the place, idiot."

"No, _idiot_ , I don't mean that. You are very emotionally involved. What do you want there?" he is right, it is more difficult for me to come in and go out from there because of my involvement with Hopper and El.

"Remember when I used to talk about the research I was working on... about the multiverse? About parallel realities and everything... So, this place is a parallel reality and I found someone there. Alive." Lucas looks at me scared for a moment and I prepare to tell him who I met on the other side. "I found Hopper there."

"You are crazy?" He asks me, incredulous, and slows down the car. "Hopper died, Mike. He died in a car accident over five years ago and you know it. We buried him, Mike-"

"It's not our Hopper! Remember when we talked about the crazy ideas of having a version of us in each of these parallel realities, Lucas? It's a different Hopper. I talked to him. He's El's father and I think he knows me. I took him to a destroyed cabin in that place and found a picture of me there. A photo of me, Lucas. A thirteen years old Mike dressed as Dr. Venkman, from Ghostbusters."

Lucas stops the car on the side of the road and lays his head on the steering wheel, staying like this for a few minutes. I start to think that maybe he doubts me... For a time, the only thing I can hear is the car radio and the wind mixed with snow outside.

"If it's not our Hopper, she can't know." this time I agree with him. If I could bring _our Hopper_ back, I would definitely do that. I would bring him back to El. But I don't know which version of him is on the other side and letting her know that “her father” is alive and relatively close may only make things worse. "And he will need a doctor... Max will be on duty at the hospital tomorrow night and we will take him to her, okay? I take care of that."

"I haven't told anyone about him, just you. I don't want her to know either..." Lucas starts to drive again while I think about El. I wonder if I should have hugged her last night before going to sleep, at least to stay close and have to the good feeling of holding her body or smelling her hair... "El and I had a terrible argument last night... she knows almost the whole story and doesn't want me to go there. She used her power against me, to push me away. Nothing serious, just... It never happened before and I kept thinking about it, what it meant..." 

"I know. She called home yesterday, talked to Max... I shouldn't talk about it, but if this is going to calm you down a bit, I'd rather break my promise to Max." He chuckles awkwardly before speaking again. "El is feeling bad for using her Jedi force against you. I don't know how Max convinced her to choose the dress tomorrow. Maybe I should do the same for you, what do you think?"

"Yeah, maybe..."

**\-----------**

I end up getting home after eight at night, but I can't find anyone in the apartment and I try to convince myself that this has a good side: El won't see me arriving with the clothes I chose for our wedding.

It's a white linen shirt, a blue tuxedo and blue pants, as she once told me she liked it, and a tie in the same color. I think it will be lovely.

I packed the clothes in a box and hid them at the bottom of a closet where we usually keep things that we still don't know if we should throw out or not, the “mess closet”. She rarely touches it, so I figured it was a good hiding place.

It was past 10 pm and she still hadn't come home or answered my phone calls. It was easier to spend the day with Lucas, Will, Brad and Dustin choosing our clothes and having Peter as the official stylist for my wedding, at least I was able to get distracted.

I cooked pasta bolognese for both of us, but I ended up having dinner alone. Only at 11 pm, I received a message from her, warning me that she would not sleep at home, that she was with Max and the girls and it was too late to return home since she did not leave with her own car today. I thought about offering to pick her up, but soon after I got her point. She doesn't want to deal with me tonight, so I accept.

I can't sleep, so I end up using my time to think about the plan. Kali is going to make the security guard see us as electrical technicians who will help solve the crash that Liv will secretly cause in the security system, blocking the cameras and alarms. Then, we will go together to the floor, where Lucas and I will go to the other side and we will have a few minutes to return in just a few hours, considering the time difference counted on the other side. I avoid thinking about what I will do when we get out of there, or if we will be able to get out.

I see a picture frame on my desk, with a family photo. Me, El, Nancy, Hopper and my parents, for a Christmas we celebrated in 1994, our first family Christmas, when our only concern was whether Hopper and my parents would get along.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to that time.


	26. Jim Hopper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!   
> First, I would like to ask you to read the first chapter of this story. And then, when you finish reading the first and this one, let me know what you think! :)

Finally, we passed the “Welcome to Hawkins, Indiana” sign. During the trip, I concentrated on observing the blurred road through the car window and the old songs that Lucas put on the radio and hummed all the time.

Kali is quiet in the rear seat, organizing some of our equipment, especially the oxygen kits we pack. I don't know how or with whom Kali got this car, a Ford Escape recently launched. The sign is fake, as are the identities we are carrying with us. Kali's work and I also don't know how or with whom she got it.

I tried to distance myself from reality so much that I barely noticed when we arrived at Hawkins' Laboratory and I can hear - through a hidden spy earphone - Liv using the code we agreed on at the coffee shop yesterday: _Nikita I need you so!_ and Lucas responds by completing the Elton John song. I don't think I'll ever understand these strange codes from the FBI people.

The security guard at the entrance of the Lab asks us to lower the car windows to look at our id's and I can't help feeling nervous about it, even though I know he's seeing three middle-aged guys in the lab's electricity team uniform.

"Glad you arrived!" says the security guard, who looks to be in his fifties and holds a cigarette on his lips. "It's empty today, but there are people upset about this energy thing."

"If it's just a wire, I'll be pissed!" Lucas says and the two share a rough laugh. "Thanks, Mark!"

"Good job, Sanders! I liked the mustache." the security guard laughs out loud and I realize that he urgently needs a dentist... and maybe a new lung."

It's really impressive what Kali can do with people's minds. Lucas doesn't have a mustache and the guy didn't even question if he ever saw our characters in his life.

"Did you give me a mustache, Kali?" Lucas asks, puzzled. "I hate mustaches..."

"I made the old man see his friends from work, people with whom he has more contact. It’s safer that way." she replies while wiping her nose and waiting for Lucas to park in the correct spot to give us our backpacks, which have the guns and oxygen kits. "Here, ready. Let's go"

The entrance was very quiet too, probably the girl at the reception only saw the trio of best-known electricians in the lab. I think the guys have been working here for centuries. I even waved to a soldier who was passing by and greeted me.

"Is Nikita home?" Lucas asks through the microphone hidden in his clothes. These FBI things are very strange.

"Yes." I hear Liv speak through the earphone I'm using. This means that she is in the locker room, where we must put on the safety clothes, one floor above the basement.

The elevator ride to the floor where she waits for us seems too slow, but at least a cool Bee Gees song is playing. I only realize that I was mumbling the song after seeing Kali's nasty face, but I choose to ignore her. This song reminds me of El.

 _El._ I miss her. I sent a message this morning asking how she was doing, but I still haven't received an answer. Lucas told me that she, Max, and the girls stayed up late and she looked much better, so I believe she is still asleep. It's 8:40 am, after all. El never wakes up early on Sundays.

When we finally reach the combined floor, I immediately notice that it is quite empty and the cameras do not follow the movement of the ball that Lucas threw down the hall. Great, they are not working.

"Hey, Kali, do you want to get some rest?" I ask mainly because she looks very nervous and there is a considerable amount of blood in the cloth she was using. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, do not worry," she answers me while looking directly at a specific place and I realize it's towards the end of the corridor. She seems to get more and more nervous as we walk until she stops for a few seconds before we turn the other way. "There's a door over there, a steel door. That's where Brenner held us when we didn't behave how he wanted. There was a guy from Brenner's team who always came into the room when I was there and... he did hurt me. One day, after spending a week in this prison, they took me out and I found Jane and told her to be careful with that man, not to let him mistreat her. One day he tried and she broke his neck."

Lucas and I stared at her for a few seconds. I am in shock with this and try not to imagine this situation. The very thought of a monstrous man mistreating two children makes me sick, to say the least.

"She was seven and I was eleven years old. She broke his neck. It was poetic." Kali says again. "Self-defense. Other than that, Jane is sweet, you know that. "Let's go, I don't want to look at this shit anymore.

After hearing all of this, I start thinking about how I could blow this place up with all those motherfuckers inside.

Maybe I will do that.

**\---------**

Liv and Kali will stay here on the underground floor, hidden, but ready to act in case something happens, while Lucas and I are going to get Hopper. I feel more relieved to know that Liv is with Kali, that she will be able to help her if it's necessary.

I looked at my phone a few times before I left, hoping to have received something from El, but I didn't. It makes me a little frustrated. I don't like to think about it, but the chances of me not being able to get out of here alive are high and I wish I had at least talked to her before I left. I think Lucas noticed my frustration, but he doesn't say anything while the girls are around.

I cross the wall before Lucas and wait for him there. I can see that nothing has changed since the last time I was here. I hope that this time it will be more peaceful and that we can find Hopper in the place I left him.

Lucas looks as scared as I did the first time I was here. I pull him by the arm so that he is close to me, since he will follow me to the abandoned hut, and I intend to get there as soon as possible.

The floor is still covered with transparent goo and deteriorated bones. I find some pieces of yellow clothing, the ones that the soldiers and I used when we first came here. I remember Connor being dragged by that monster and it makes me pull Lucas closer to me.

"What is this place, Mike?" He asks me, tense, holding his gun tighter than usual. "I have the feeling that I died and this is hell... but it's cold."

"Maybe it's an alternative version of hell." I answer, trying not to make him so nervous. "It is a variation of our reality, so it may just be the opposite of the world we live in... Time, life, processes... maybe it is the other way around. I don't know." 

"It's very dark here... It looks like a place I know... it looks like Hawkins and-"

Lucas stops talking as soon as he hears a loud animal sound, that same sound I heard when those creatures were around. That's when I see that one of those strange dogs is very close to us, but not in our direction. I position my arm over Lucas so that he stops walking and doesn't attract the bug to us.

"What the fuck?" he asks me softly. "Looks like a dog... but from hell."

"Yeah, man." We watched as the dog-demon-mini monster walks near us and disappears among some trees a little distant. I notice that some of the trees have holes in the trunks, holes that look like the door we went through to get here. I wonder if they are mini gates... and where would they take us."

Lucas and I continued walking for a few minutes, which must have already meant hours on the other side. We need to get out of here soon.

I go on walking as fast as possible, but trying not to attract the attention of the creatures of this place and Lucas continues to follow me until we see the lamp in the cabin lit. One more question I still can't answer: why does this lamp seem to be the only one lit? And how is that possible, if there is no electricity here? At least not that I know of.

I keep walking towards the cabin when I feel something pull on my arm with a supernatural force. I try to see what it is, if it is one of those dogs or that other monster with an almost human body. I hear Lucas shout my name a few times, but I can't answer him. I try to position the weapon to shoot this creature, but the thing holds my arm very tightly. I see when its head opens in several bands and comes towards me. I remember Connor again. Did he find himself like this, helpless, when he was in the same situation as me, seconds before he died?

I remember the jackknife in my pants pocket and grab it fast enough to stick the blade in the monster's back, which must be twice the size of Lucas, who is taller than me. I push hard enough to hurt the thing as much as I can while he screams in pain or agony. At that moment, Lucas fires at the monster and I see when his head explodes in front of me, making his body fall on mine. It's disgusting, but I'm so overcome with adrenaline or fear that I push the dead monster to my side and get up.

Lucas comes up to me, asking me thousands of questions that I don't hear well because there is one of those dogs coming towards us and I hurry to get my gun back in time to fire twice at the creature, killing it.

I pull Lucas by the arm again, ignoring his questions and we run to the cabin where I left Hopper. I hope I'll still find him there.

I kick the cabin's door as soon as we arrive and I get scared when Hopper is not the first thing I see when I get in. He's not in the spot I let him the other day. I leave Lucas at the entrance, watching the door, as I pass through the rooms. Kitchen, bedroom, living room... and I still can't find Hopper. I open the bathroom door and see that he was hidden in what should have been a bathtub. I run to see if he's still alive.

His heartbeats are still very weak and the oxygen cylinder is almost empty.

"Lucas! In the bathroom!" I call out to my friend as loudly as I can and it's not long before I hear his steps, coming to meet us. He immediately helps me change the oxygen cylinder we brought. "Did you see any of those monsters around?"

"No, but we need to get out of here" he finally looks at Hopper lying down on the floor. "Oh, shit..."

"Yeah... let's go."

Hopper is too weak to follow us without any help, so we use our belt to tie his body to ours until we get on the other side.

When we felt ready to go, we practically ran out of the cabin, dragging Hopper with us. Everything seemed easier for us, at least half of the way.

"Dad..." I hear again the voice of that girl who tormented me the first time I was here. This time, her voice seems muffled by something, as if she were submerged. The strange thing is that Hopper answers it.

"El..." he says in an extremely weak voice. Lucas needs to redouble his effort to get us out of here because hearing that voice has destabilized me. The girl's voice... Why does Hopper answer her? I've never heard this voice before. 

We were startled to see at least five dogs surrounding us very close to the exit. We didn't think long before shooting each one of them. I make mistakes sometimes due to lack of practice, but I manage to get rid of some of them.

We ran for a few meters, shooting at those animals until we got to the exit when I get to cut the belt that connects the three of us with the knife to help our escape.

I push Hopper out while Lucas continues to shoot one of those dogs. I come back to help him as soon as I get Hopper to the other side and the girls probably held him, but those few seconds were enough for an evil-dog to pull Lucas by his leg and I go towards them, being careful not to end up shooting Lucas while trying to kill that fucking creature.

Lucas does the same as I did the first time and hits the dog with a jackknife, allowing me to shoot the animal three times. I pull Lucas's arm and drag him to the exit, breaking through that thick, slimy layer that divides us.

I meet the girls on the other side as soon as we cross. Kali looks at me with a frightened expression and I don't answer her, I just help Lucas get up. Despite the attack, the dog did not hurt him.

"We need to go to the hospital now!" I say and we started to move towards the second part of the plan.

**\-----------**

Lucas, at my side, with his gun, pulled ready to shoot anyone who finds us here. My best friend did not hesitate to help me, no matter how suicidal we are acting now.

Thanks to Kali, everyone here thinks they are having another tedious night at Hawkins National Laboratory. That's what they see.

We ran together towards the nearest exit, taking a few breaks in some rooms without active cameras, allowing Kali to take a few minutes to get ready again, breath and continue our escape.

Ten minutes later, we are in the parking lot. I push Hopper's body into our car while I hear Kali yelling at me, but I just ask - I scream - to get the car started.

I see that Liv has already got into the rental car that she got with a fake ID that Kali gave her yesterday morning, and I feel relieved to know that she will be leaving here together with us, in time to go through security without him seeing her, with Kali's help.

I hear the sound of the engine and notice that Lucas is already in control of the steering wheel and ready to get us out of this hell. I get in the car and reposition Hopper's oxygen mask while I look at his face and think: _what am I going to do with him?_

"We need to get to the hospital as soon as possible," I say, still breathing heavily. "Did anyone talk to Max? She's waiting for us, right?"

"Yes, I spoke to her earlier and she is waiting for us." Kali says to me while wiping the blood from her nose with her shirt sleeve. "Didn't you tell her anything? Not even El?"

Lucas intrudes, probably feeling that my response would be out of control. "El can't know, okay? It's going to be okay with Max. We just need to get there. It will take a few hours, but we will get there. Are you okay, Mike?"

I whisper a 'yes' while feeling a little sick. I can't let El know. _I can't_. I lean my head against the window and watch the streets, the house, the trees, and the whole Hawkins scene become blur spots.

It's 3:53 pm. The girls said that we spent about twenty minutes on the other side, but that counted 8 hours in our reality. The time does not match the first time I entered that place. This helps me to understand - and confuse me - even more: there is a deep expansion of time on the other side.

**\-----------**

I leave the trance when I realize that we are parking - very badly - in the Chicago Hospital parking lot. I notice a lot of red hair coming through the front door.

Max has a wheelchair and quickly throws a cigarette she was smoking on the floor. _Does she still smoke? And in the hospital?_

Lucas gets out of the car and says something to Max that I just can't understand. I release my seat belt and, with Kali's help, pull Hopper's body out of the car.

Max comes to us, trying to hide her nervousness. "Doing shit again, Mike? Who is he? Did you kill the guy?" she asks trying to relax and I can even laugh a little.

Max guides us to a hospital wing that she said is safe. Lucas and I lay him down on the stretcher and Kali remove the oxygen mask from his face. 

Slowly, I realize how Max looks at each one of us and her face pales more and more. At that moment, she realized.

At that moment, I realized what I did.

"Mike, who is he?" Max asks me, and I mumble that she already knows, but I know she wants to hear it from me. "Mike!"

I take a deep breath so I can say it out loud and make myself believe it too.

"It's Hopper."


	27. Coming Home

The first thing I see when I wake up is that empty place, _the void_. I don't know how I got in here. I look around, hoping I will see something or someone, but there is nothing. Just that pile of water on the floor, where I can see my reflection.

I walk without knowing where I'm going until I hear that voice again, very quietly.

"Dad..."

It's my voice.

I follow the sound, this time a shy, crying voice, until I can see a bathtub far away. As I walk towards it, I hear some whispers mixed with some sounds of wild animals, but I can't find any.

As I suspected, there is a bathtub and a radio above the counter. There is a mirror, but I cannot see my reflection. I try to remember how I got to void and I can't.

What I see in the bathtub is scary for me. I see myself in it, but it's not me, it's a fourteen years old version of me, floating in the bathtub and blindfolded. A _mini isolation pool_. I'm looking for someone.

"El..." I hear my father's voice over the radio, a weak voice, and some transmission interference. That wild animal noise is also present.

I reach out to turn off the radio and break the connection, but I immediately feel someone hold my arm towards the bathtub. It's me again.

"He's in the upside down." the younger El tells me in an urgent voice and pulls me into the bathtub with her.

I feel panic wash over me with the feeling of drowning. Suddenly, I can get out of that “dream” and return to reality. I was in a bathtub but from Max and Lucas's house. I was taking a bath. I can't remember how I got in the _void_ and met a younger version of me.

My desperation to wake up was so high that I need some time to normalize my breathing. I feel cold too, very cold. More than normal. I look around and notice that I ended up spreading some water from the bathtub on the floor. _Shit._

I have a strange feeling of helplessness as if my mind is blurred, preventing me from thinking clearly about what I have dreamed... or experienced.

I get out of the bathtub and dry myself off with the towel Max gave me. I can hear the girls downstairs talking about some things related to grandparents. I spent the last few days at Max and Lucas's and the last time I saw Mike was Friday night. I know he slept at home, but for some reason, he stayed away from me. And I haven't talked to him since.

I go to the kitchen as soon as I finish getting dressed and look a little better. I meet Max and the girls having lunch and I sit next to them.

"Aunt El, you need to have lunch with us. It wasn't Dad who cooked it, but you can eat it." Anna tells me with a mischievous smile.

"Did your mother cook? So scary!" I pretend to be scared just to get into her conversation while I sit next to her and start setting my plate. I'm not hungry, but I know that Max and the girls would be at least intrigued if I didn't have lunch today.

"You two are brats." Max pretends to complain to us. "Karen likes my food, don't you, baby?"

"I don't like it, mom!" Karen responds while laughing and Max throws a little paper ball at her. All this playtime between mother and daughters makes me imagine things that I can't have, so I try to push the thought away as quickly as possible.

"Did Mike call you?" I ask Max. "He sent me a message earlier today... I answered, but he still has not to get it back to me yet..."

"No, he hasn't. He's probably having lunch with Lucas somewhere." Max answers before drinking some juice. We should get out today to buy my wedding dress, but we ended up doing it yesterday. Now, I don't have anything to occupy my mind until I go home. "Relax... He and Lucas are hanging out, doing something cool... Listen, take some time to yourself is a good thins, you know? It's important to take a break sometimes."

"Uncle Mike is buying his wedding clothes, El," Karen says and this surprises me a little. I didn't know that Mike was planning to buy his clothes so soon, I thought he was going to leave for the beginning of next month. "I heard daddy talking about it yesterday."

"Karen, come on!" Max calls her out and I think it's funny. Karen's big mouth is the best thing that happened to me today. "It was supposed to be a secret!"

"But mom, she had that face as if Uncle Mike was leaving again!" Karen justifies and I wonder what my “face” would be like.

On the one hand, I had a bad feeling in the last few days, a feeling that Mike and I would no longer be the same after I used my “skill” against him Friday before he left the house for hours and came back late night.

I admit that part of me didn't want to go home yesterday because I was ashamed. I sometimes think that what happened that night was a sample of the freak I am.

"But Mike is not leaving and you need to keep secrets... and not overhear my conversations with your father, okay?" Max keeps talking to Karen. We stayed in not so comfortable silence for a few minutes until Max caught my eye again. "El? I'm going to need to go to the hospital earlier today, do you want me to leave you at your house? You can stay here too if you want... but today is the day for the girls to be with their grandparents, so it can be kind of boring..."

"It's okay." I take a deep breath before continuing. "I'm going home."

**\------**

I didn't go home.

After Max left the girls with their grandparents, I asked her to drop me off at dance school. Although she thought it was weird, Max just agreed and brought me here.

It's Sunday, so the school is closed, but Lucy gave me a copy of the key so I could come in whenever I wanted. I didn't want to be home alone, thinking about Mike, how he didn't answer my calls today, or the creepy dream I had earlier.

I haven't taken antidepressants in three months, which is curious, at least, for a psychologist like me who ends up needing to take these crude medicines. I wonder if what I dreamed of earlier today is a reflection of their lack...

Dancing for hours in the empty studio helped me to forget the last few days and to be able to create the new steps that I was thinking about presenting to Lucy. However, I am beginning to feel the tiredness taking over my body because of constant efforts and my insistence on trying a specific ballet move. I don't even like ballet.

 _Just one more time,_ I think. Just one more try and I'm going home. Maybe Mike is there, maybe not. It's getting late, anyway.

I take a deep breath and let it out very slowly before I start. I stand on the tip of my right foot, as Lucy taught me a few days ago, and start to rotate my body. I can do it four, five, six times without losing my balance. Consequently, my body starts to get used to the new speed of the movements and I start to believe that I will be able to reach ten rounds when I hear a faint noise of something breaking, accompanied by a sharp pain in my finger, which makes me lose my balance and fall on the floor.

I am so frustrated with what happened that I barely hear it when the studio door opens and Mike comes up to me anxiously. I had no idea he was here.

"Are you okay? What happened?" he asks, more anxious than me, and I no longer feel that sharp pain in the tip of the foot. "Did you break your foot?"

"No, I must have hurt my finger." He looks weirdly but waits for me to take off my sneaker. As soon as I take it off, I see that I broke my nail. _Great_ , I think. At least it doesn't look so horrible, but Mike has such an explicit panic expression that it looks like I had a terrible accident and lost my foot. "I just broke my nail..."

"Do you want me to take you to a hospital? I'll take you-"

"Mike, it was just my nail. Calm down"

"Ok..." I try to observe him, wanting to understand why he looks so unusual and is so nervous, but he speaks again. "where can I find a band-aid or something?"

"The door back there goes into a corridor. The second door on the right has a bathroom. There is a kit for bandages there."

"Okay, I'll be right back." he runs away following the direction I indicated as if I was seriously injured. Mike has always been anxious, but there is something strange about him now... and how did he get in here anyway? I don't know, but I won't complain about having him around after days without contact.

It does not take him long to return to the studio, carrying the box with some items to make a bandage. Mike sits across from me and immediately puts some alcohol on a piece of cotton.

Even with all his care in cleaning the wound, I can't help reacting to the sting I feel with the contact of cotton with alcohol on my nail.

"I'm sorry..." Mike whispers, but without looking directly at me. "I'll fix it... I mean, I'll make a bandage here."

"It's just a nail, Mike," I say with a calm tone. "I'll be fine... alcohol makes it burn a little, but it will pass..."

"I know, I know..." He seems too nervous and I start to get worried. Mike has already done a thousand bandages on me because I'm clumsy and I always hit something and end up hurting myself. This is the first time I have seen him nervous at such a simple thing. "Once, when I was a kid, Dustin kicked the floor and his nail was horrible... my mom did the bandage, but you know how scandalous Dustin is. I was traumatized... but I will fix it here, I will... I just..."

He doesn't finish the sentence and I think it's best to leave him alone. After cleaning the wound, he looks for an ointment or whatever is in the box and I take the opportunity to ask how he got here.

"Ah, Max told me she brought you here," he responds while getting something in the box. "I remembered that the spare key is in the window gap and I got in. I saw that you were concentrated here, so I was waiting in the hall... sorry if I scared you."

"You did not..." I watch him put some more medicine on the wound before finishing the bandage. In addition to the nervousness, Mike seems to be exhausted and I wonder how was his tour with the boys. I confess that I expected to find him at least more excited...

His hair is long and I notice that this is already bothering him, a few strands covering his glasses and his eyes. He also hasn't shaved in weeks, which is a little unusual. I'm starting to think he's thinner too, but it might be in my head. In general, Mike seems to have put aside self-care, perhaps because he focuses so much on Hawkins and forgets about himself... and me.

Even with him here, trying to bandage my finger and save my broken nail, I feel so distant from him, as if we have lost part of our intimacy. Thinking about it makes me sad, so I choose to be quiet and wait for him to finish the bandage.

And he is so obsessed with doing it perfectly that it takes longer than expected, but I leave him alone to do what he wants. Before finishing, he takes a few deep breaths, as if he's building up the courage to do something.

"Nancy was always my parents' favorite, you know?" I find it strange when he starts talking about Nancy like that, out of the blue, but I just listen. "They kind of expected me to be as good as her... I think that's why my dad always demanded that I do everything perfectly, but I couldn't. I remember he came home from work and the first thing he did was compare us. _Nancy won an essay prize, but you sucked, Nancy joined the theater group and you only know how to play video games_... those things. One day I realized that I didn't want him to see me, you know? I wanted to be invisible to him, for him to forget me for good and leave me alone. I found out later that Nancy wanted the same thing." 

"How old were you when you realized that?" I ask, curious. Mike never told me about it, but I imagined that this obsession he has with "fixing" things all the time had something to do with his childhood. He always wants to do "the right thing", "the right way", without mistakes or flaws. He charges himself a lot for it.

"I was about eight... Nancy was ten years old. It was before we moved to Michigan because of my father's work." he seems to have finally finished the bandage and is packing things in the box. He still hasn't looked at me since we started talking. "After a while, my father stopped comparing us... he started to ignore us. At the time, I could have sworn that I had managed to create an imaginary wall around me that made me invisible to him, you know? I stayed away from my parents and my sister, I didn't want to be seen by them... I used this "wall" at school too, the people were not nice to me, but being alone was kind of good..."

Mike shrugs and finishes packing things in the box. The dressing is perfect. The combination of that with your speech worries me...

"It took me a while to understand that I became invisible to my father because he had a lover. My mom also didn't see me because she was busy suffering from a bad marriage and drinking. Nancy was busy focusing on her studies to be able to leave as soon as possible... so I grew up like that, invisible. On the one hand, it was good because no one could see my failures during youth." He says that with a nervous laugh, but I don't think it's funny at all. He takes a deep breath again before continuing. "Years and years later I saw you at that college event and Max introduced us... We started talking and hanging out together... I realized I didn't want to hide in that imaginary wall. I wanted you to see me because I was in love... and you were the one who started to break down this wall I created. You agreed to get that milkshake with me..."

"It was the best decision I've ever made." He looks at me this time, with a contained smile, but a sad and distant look. I wonder if it's because of what I did on Friday night.

"I'm sorry for the last few days... for everything. I feel distant from you as if I created that wall again... I don't want that, I don't want to feel distant or invisible again. I want to fix things, that's all."

"I understand. I'm sorry too... for what I did against you that night..." I'm more nervous than I imagined. "I swear I didn't want to push you... I shouldn't have talked to you like that too, but I was scared, you know? I am scared!"

"What makes you feel this way?" Mike approaches me enough to hold my face in his hands.

"To be distant from you, to know that you are in that place, to be without contact for days. That night we fought and you left... I thought you weren't coming back."

"I will always come back if you want." he gives me a soft kiss soon after. I missed his lips so much, but he breaks this kiss too quickly. "Let's go home?"

This time, I don't refuse the invitation and hold Mike's hand in mine, the warmth of his skin radiating in mine.

"Yes."


	28. Warmest Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!! Thank you so much for all the cuddles! Let me know what you think of this story...feedback is ALWAYS welcome! :)

It's December, the Christmas atmosphere has already taken over the city and has also brought snow. A lot of snow. Chicago is freezing outside, probably freezing.

But there is heat in my room and, consequently, in my entire body. I think some points on my body boil with every touch of Mike, with every kiss he gives me.

After our conversation at the dance school, Mike brought us home on a twenty-minute trip in comfortable silence. He was exhausted, after all, so I let him shower after me. We even thought about ordering some food for dinner, but I'm not hungry and he said he was too tired to wait, dinner, and wash the dishes. I don't judge him for that.

I also didn't expect that chaste kiss on my neck before going to sleep would evolve to where we are now, but I don't complain about it, not at all. I just realized now how much I missed him in the past week.

The weight of his body covering mine is a perfect match, and so are his movements over me, inside me. The contact of his skin on mine, the drops of sweat on his forehead, the tracks of his mouth on my shoulder... I'm not sure how to describe everything he makes me feel when we're together.

I missed this trust and confidence that we have in each other, as he touches - now - my most sensitive point as he varies between kissing my mouth and whispering some words that I can't even say whether I understand or not.

I know I won't be able to resist much longer, so I wrap my legs in his hips and kiss his mouth because I want him to get lost with me tonight. And he does.

Our heavy breathing is the only sound in the apartment for a few minutes. Mike allows himself to relax, resting his whole body on mine while I hug him and caress his hair. After what he told me today at the dance school, I want him to feel loved by me, to know that I see him, with all his flaws and qualities and I want him anyway because that's exactly how I feel about him.

"I love you, so much..." he whispers in my ear before changing position and resting his forehead on mine, looking me in the eyes. "But you drained all my energy and now I'm exhausted..."

"You started it!" He gives me that wide smile I like so much. He shaved while I showered and seeing him like this now reminds me of when we were younger and he rarely grew a beard. My twenty-something-years-old nerd who invited me for a milkshake at an ice cream shop near the college and took me home at the end of the day. "Love you too."

"El, I..." He seems a little more nervous now as if he is looking for the right words to say “Nothing... your nail is good, right?"

"Yes, thank you for saving it." I say trying not to show how weird his question is. "You are really exhausted. Sleep, rest... are you going to work tomorrow?"

"No. Fuck them. I will stay here with you." there is such a determination in his eyes that I don't even question him because I really want him with me.

"Yeah... fuck them."

**\--------**

It takes me a while to sleep, even though I'm also tired. My mind goes back to the dream I had in the bathtub at Max and Lucas' house, how that seemed too real for a simple dream...

Mike, unlike me, is sound asleep, lying next to me and using my shoulder as a pillow, but I don't complain about it. At least he's here.

Knowing that in the last few days he was with the boys and not in that place makes me relieved, but I also can't stop thinking about the fight we had and the reason for everything that happened.

During my troubled childhood in that laboratory, Brenner tested me whenever possible. I remember how he wanted me to use my “gift” to overcome barriers in our world. The whole conversation scared me too much when I was a kid, but apparently, I won't get rid of it while Mike is working there.

I also think about that dream with my younger version. Why did the "yesterday me" kept saying that "he" was on the other side? And who is he, anyway? I wonder if it would be my father since she seemed to be looking for him...

A plausible explanation for this dream is stress, the fact that I argued with Mike and felt vulnerable that night when he left. I spent hours thinking about my father and what he would say to me after what happened, if he would scold me for using my "gift" against Mike, even if I didn't mean to...

I think about talking to Mike about all this, maybe he can explain to me about the parallel reality he found, and then I can put together the pieces of this terrible dream I have sometimes. Or maybe talking about it with him will make things worse, it might make him want to keep this job at Hawkins just when we need to get away from that place...

After what seems like hours of thinking and getting nowhere, I feel my body giving in. I'm about to fall asleep when I hear the annoying noise of the phone. It seems to be a message and I think about ignoring it, but I hear the noise again.

The bedside clock reads 1:47 am and I wonder who could be sending me a message at this time and insistently.

I reach over my nightstand to get my cell phone and, still sleepy, I try to read what is written, but I don't understand.

_1:46 - Maxine:_

_He's still asleep, but it would be nice to have your visit as soon as possible._

_1:46 - Maxine:_

_I demand that you explain to me how it happened, Mike_

_1:47 - Maxine:_

_I'll let you know if something happens around here._

Mike? I don't understand Max's messages and I return to the home screen, only to realize that this isn't my cellphone, but Mike's. He bought a BlackBerry exactly like mine after the one he used broke. The sound of the messages is the same and it was very close to me. I ended up reading Max's messages to him by mistake.

And even though I did something I shouldn't have _accidentally_ , I'm more irritated by the possibility that there's something serious going on and I don't know by their omission.

First: if Max is demanding explanations from Mike, it is very serious;

Second: by “ _here_ ”, I imagine it is the hospital, which is where Max is working tonight;

Third: who the hell is there and sleeping?

I put the damn phone on the nightstand and go back to the position I was in, still confused, and potentially upset about something I don't know yet what it is.

I take a deep breath before I get mad. _Tomorrow, I'll him ask what's going on_ , I think. I don't want to go back to the discomfort between Mike and me again.

He sleeps next to me and I notice that his breathing is faster than normal. A bad dream, maybe?

I run my hand through his hair, hoping that it will calm his mind from some bad dream he may be having now, but it has the opposite effect. He wakes up as soon as I touch him, a little agitated and anxious.

"Hey, calm down! It's me." I try to calm him down a little bit. "It looked like you were having a nightmare... sorry for scaring you."

"It's okay... It wasn't a nightmare, it was a strange dream. It's bullshit." He pulls me closer and I lie on his chest, still thinking about his reaction and Max's messages.

"Don't you want to talk about it?" I ask a little worried. "It will do you good if it's something that bothers you."

"It's bullshit... and you, why are you still awake?" He kisses my forehead and I reach up a little to look into his eyes.

"I was thinking about a dream I had today..." I don't know if I want to discuss this now... Maybe it's better if I hide from all the questions that go around my mind tonight. "Bullshit too. It's past time for bed, isn't it?"

"Okay, mom... are you going to put me to sleep too?" Mike laughs as he teases me and I cover his eyes with my hands.

"Yes! Hurry up!" I reach out a little to kiss his lips, still covering his eyes. He returns the kiss to me.

It doesn't take long to sleep after that.

**\--------**

It is still very early when I arrive at Chicago's Hospital, around 7 am. Mike was still asleep when I went out to buy some things to make breakfast for both of us. By coincidence or not, the bakery he likes is close to the hospital where Max works.

I still don't know if what I'm doing here is right or not, especially because of the message I accidentally read yesterday, but I'm still looking for answers.

The guy at the reception informed me that Max is still on duty and I go to her office, but I can't find her. I walk around the hospital looking for her and I worry that the coffee I bought will end up getting cold.

I am walking down the corridor of the clinical wing when I hear her voice a little agitated, seeming to come from one of the rooms. I wait in the hall until she finishes talking to anyone... but, by the tone, it's not a patient.

"No, he hasn't woken up yet... I don't know! The results of the exams are going to come out in a little while..." I move a little further away to not overhear their conversation, but she complains to whoever she's talking, loud enough for the other side of the city to hear. "I want you to explain this shit to me! What am I going to say if he wakes up? Fuck the phone, Michael, I need to talk to you!"

 _Michael_ ? I try not to overthink when I hear this name, but... Michael? Okay. There are millions of Michaels in the world, it doesn't have to be _my Michael_ specifically.

"Listen, we're all going to stick to the deal, but you need to find a way to deal with it. I will not accept if she fucks everything up again! And find a way to find me when you can."

Max leaves the patient's room and is startled as soon as she sees me in the hall, so much so that she drops her phone on the floor. I barely have time to say anything when she starts talking.

"What are you doing here?" her reaction is so unusual... impossible for me not to associate her messages to Mike, the person she was talking on the phone... the man who has not yet "woken up".

"Good morning to you too." I give her the cup of coffee I bought earlier, which must be warm now. "I stopped by the bakery nearby and remembered that you were working..."

"Sorry... I'm sorry, El." She comes up to me and hugs me tight. "Last night was terrible... are you all right? How are you? Let's go outside."

I don't have time to answer any of two questions because she pulls me by the arm to the building's elevator, pressing the button on the ground floor several times.

"I'm fine... I talked to Mike yesterday, we're fine." she gives me that forced smile, one she uses whenever she is agitated or very anxious... "What happened? Why are you like this?"

"Like what? Oh, I haven't slept in twelve hours, it was busy at night... on duty. I should have studied psychology, you are always so calm at work! Thanks for the coffee, by the way."

We reach the ground floor of the building and follow Max to the parking lot. When we get close to my car, Max lights a cigarette that was in a box inside her pants pocket.

"Oh really?" I take the cigarette from her lips and throw it on the floor, crushing it with my sneakers. "Stop that shit, Max. It won't help... neither will the coffee, give me that-"

"Oh no, let me drink the damn coffee! I am tired, that's all!"

"Who were you fighting with? On the phone." I ask even though I am a little afraid of her answer. "Was it Mike? I heard you say "Michael"..."

"It's a Michael... Michael Daniels, my colleague here at the hospital. He left me alone yesterday. I'm overwhelmed..."

"Oh..." I don't buy that. "Yesterday I accidentally read your message to Mike, _my Mike_... What happened? Is everything okay?"

"Message to Mike? Oh shit... I think I texted the wrong Michael last night. I'm sorry. I'll tell him to ignore it." She takes out her phone and types something, then gives me another forced smile and shrugs. "I'm sorry you get to see me like this... I look crazy, I know."

"Relax..." I pull the hair away from her face a little, putting it behind her ear. "Well, I brought the coffee because I thought you would be happy to not have to drink coffee from the hospital machine."

"The coffee here sucks!" We laughed together and Max holds my hand in hers, pulling me to stand beside her in the car. "How was it yesterday? Are you and Mike good?"

"More or less... he found me at school, vented for a while, said he feels distant from me and does not want that to happen. I don't want it either... anyway, we went home, had sex... but we haven't really talked yet."

"Save me the details!" she interrupts me and I laugh at that. I remember when Mike and I started dating and all Max and I did was talk about the boys and their "performances". "But it's good that you had a good time together... Look, enjoy it. If you have to talk, let it flow. Wait for the moment to come. Mike didn't screw up these days, he stayed with the boys, so..."

"Yeah... he said he won't be working today, he said 'fuck them'" I make quotes in the air with my fingers and even Max must find Mike's argument at least weird. "I won't complain, at least he will stay home with me."

"Yeah... Listen, turn off your phone, enjoy the day with him. Just you two. Pretend that there is no world outside your house. Don't answer if Kali calls..."

"Kali?" _what does she have to do with it?_

"Kali, Nancy, Dustin, Will... Me... just ignore the whole world. Enjoy it, El!"

"Ok! I will... Thank you!"

Max suddenly hugs me tightly, almost making me lose my balance. I find my whole encounter with her odd, but I don't know if this is a good time to question her. Maybe she had a difficult shift.

"I need to go back..." Max says as she undoes our hug. "If you need anything, let me know. Thank you for the coffee."

I see Max quickly return to the hospital, still typing on her phone. Well, at least one answer about the messages... Or just the good answer I wanted to hear.

I decided to follow Max's advice and tried my best to enjoy my day with Mike.

He was awake when I got home, talking to Owens on the phone, insisting he wouldn't work today because of a migraine crisis that prevented him from sleeping and is now torturing him. I think Owens bought Mike's excuse.

We stick together all day. I cut his hair, which was too long, he made another perfect bandage for my broken nail, we cooked mac & cheese for lunch and tiramisù for dessert, we rearranged the photos in the albums and remembered our moments together all these years, we had sex on the couch and that heat that contrasts with the cold of Chicago was present once again.


	29. Jim Hopper

Today, Wednesday, December 17, 2008, Hopper woke up in a hospital bed in Chicago.

I cannot describe what I felt when I entered the hospital room and found him conscious. I think Max and I have been here for about ten minutes since I arrived after receiving a call from her saying that he was awake.

Hopper is registered at the hospital as Patrick Fraser, thanks to a fake ID Kali got before we went to rescue him. He was having heart and lung failure when we brought him here and had to spend some time using a mechanical ventilator. Max referred him to detox as soon as he woke up, which gave me time to run out of Hawkins and come to Chicago Hospital. We didn't say anything to Lucas and Kali.

Olivia hasn't asked me everything she would like after the day we rescued Hopper, but for lack of opportunity. I only met her at the laboratory yesterday and today, but we were very busy and surrounded by agents and doctors. My initial exams since the day I went through the portal showed no changes in my body, so I am "fine". The psychological analysis should come out today.

Owens obviously didn't believe my excuse for missing work Monday and argued with me, repeated over and over that I can't give them a chance to spy on me, but I didn't have much patience and left him talking to himself and drove back home. One of the things I promised myself is that I won't let this job interfere with my relationship with El, so when I feel like I should stay home with her eating junk food and doing nothing, I will.

I don't know what my involvement with work will be like from now on, but I hope they'll fire me as soon as possible. I left early today, at 1:37 pm, to run to Chicago to meet Hopper. 

And here I am, in silence, waiting for him to have the time he needs to start talking to us. Max is beside me, apparently tired and probably thinking about killing me with her own hands since I didn't talk since I brought Hopper here, only giving a quick explanation and running away to meet El.

I almost died when Max sent me a message saying that El had visited this hospital and that she read my messages at dawn. But knowing this helped me to align the story of the “Michael Daniels, asshole doctor who left Max alone on duty”. Still, I don't think El believed that story completely.

And then there's Kali. We got into a terrible argument in the hospital parking lot when we brought Hopper. She didn't know that he was “the thing” that I needed to look for on the other side and thinks that we should tell El everything, while Max and I believe that she cannot dream of this whole story and Lucas is a bit divided. Kali tried to intimidate me while I got in the car, ready to go home. She gave me one week to tell El the truth or she will do it herself. I doubt it.

"What day is today?" is the first thing Hopper says since I arrived, making me stop thinking about Kali, Owens, Liv, Hawkins, parallel realities, El..."Who are you?"

"December 17th. My name is Maxine, I'm a doctor... I received you here when you arrived." Max speaks carefully, perhaps because he does not know how to explain the inexplicable... I also do not know what to say. "This man next to me found you and brought you here. His name is Michael. What's your name?"

"James Hopper." he says suspiciously. _James Hopper... my father-in-law's name_. "Why am I here?"

"Because Michael found you unconscious and brought you here... We don't know much about you other than your name... Your birthday, history... Can you tell us a little about yourself?"

"Are you going to talk about you too?" he reluctantly returns. He doesn't trust us to talk about you. Good old Hopper...

"We will." I answer. "My name is Michael Theodore..." I'm afraid to say my surname and he'll recognize it since there was a picture of me when I was a child in that cabin... or maybe he won't recognize me... "I'm thirty-six years old, I live here in Chicago. I'm a teacher and I do researches about quantum physics..."

"I'm Maxine... Sinclair." touché. Max doesn't use Lucas's name, but we notice that Hopper looks odd when he hears ' _Sinclair'_. "I'm thirty-seven years old. I am married and have two daughters. Twins! I was born on February 13, 1971. What about you?"

"James Hopper. June 22... I'm 43 years old." 43 years? Max must find this as strange as I do. "I'm a cop, Hawkins police chief. I'm not married..."

"Do you have children?" I ask anxiously for your answer. "Someone familiar, someone close..."

Hopper doesn't answer my question, but I watch when he touches his right wrist as if looking for something... the blue bracelet? I pull on the sleeve of my shirt to hide the bracelets I'm wearing.

"What day is today?" Hopper asks again.

"December 17th. What's the last thing you remember? And when did it happen...?" Max questions him. Clever of her to ask that.

"That Russian son of a bitch." Russian? "At the mall. Starcourt Mall. It was on the 4th of July."

"What Russian? Where is this mall that you talked about?" I ask as I write down the name on a notepad. "4th of July? What year?"

"1986."

Nineteen eighty-six. Is this Hopper from another time? But that place is very different from what I remember from the eighties. I would say that that place is actually our post-apocalyptic future.

Max appears to be in a cold sweat, so I keep interrogating Hopper.

"Ah, 86's... Who were you with?"

"Joyce... Joyce Byers. Where is she?"

"Byers?" Max asks in shock. Joyce Byers is Will's mother. She met Hopper at school and El told me that there is a document signed by our Hopper that gives Joyce the maternal responsibilities over El while she is a minor. "Anyone else with you?"

"Look, girl, I'm tired of answering your questions." he starts to get a little irritated, and the noise of the cardiac monitor changes. "When can I get out of here?"

"Not yet, we need to know some things, Mr. Hopper," Max responds trying to remain calm. "Who besides Joyce Byers was with you?"

"Murray... where's Jonathan Byers? And Nancy Wheeler? I need to talk to them now!" Hopper starts to remove the electrodes and tries to get out of bed. Max and I go to him to stop him, but he manages to push Max and grabs me by the wrist.

This is how he gets to see the bracelets that I am wearing and I hope that, in his reality, he doesn't have one. But it's no use, he freezes as soon as he sees the bracelets.

Your look at me is a little desperate. I immediately feel that he recognized, that he had an equal. I don't know if he used it with Sarah or just with El if it has the same meaning.

"Who are you?" Hopper asks me astonished. "Who gave you this bracelet?"

"I'm Michael Wheeler." He looks at Max as soon as he hears my name as if he is recognizing her too. "The Jim Hopper I know died in November 2003 in a car accident. He was 62 years old. On my fiancee's 28th birthday, Jim gave me this bracelet, the three of us wore it: Jim, my fiancee and me. I don't know if you know me in your time, but-"

"What day is today?" Hopper asks us in a desperate tone.

"December 17, 2008." Max says.

**\-------**

Max had to sedate Hopper after I told him we are in 2008, not 1986. Maybe it will get worse when he wakes up, but Max assured me that he can take care of him at the hospital. In the meantime, I need to find a place for him to stay safe... I just don't know for how long.

"What do you think I should do?" I ask Max while we sit on a bench at the bus stop in front of the hospital.

"I don't know... He's not from here, he's not the person we knew. I can't tell El... We can't say that her father is here because he's not... I'm afraid of how she would react. I don't want all that to happen again."

"She stopped taking antidepressants a few months ago. I don't want to ruin everything." El had to deal with a lot of suffering and sadness years ago. I don't want to return to this dark time.

"Does she still visit Hopper's old house?" Max asks before smoking her cigarette.

"She has not been there for a time now. The last time she went there was a few months ago when she discovered that rental space he had and those documents about her."

"What do you think about taking _that Hopper_ to _our Hopper_ 's old house? At least it is a reliable place. We won't be able to keep him here at the hospital for long."

"Maybe... and Kali can't know. Have you already spoken to her?" I ask, curious. Kali made a scene on Sunday, but she's been a bit quiet these days, which worries me.

"No, and I hope I don't have to deal with her anytime soon." this comment can get the first laugh out of the day. "I don't hate her, I just can't..."

"Get along with her? It's really hard. We think very differently... I think she has no idea of how her actions affect other people."

"Yes, that's why I think you look alike at times." I'm kind of surprised by that. Kali and I look alike? I never thought about that possibility. "Although you are much more bearable than her... Sometimes I think she will ruin everything."

"Yeah... El is busy with the work stuff, barely has time for me. I hope she's not having time to pay attention to Kali these days."

"Yeah, me too..." Max rests her head on the back support of the bus stop. "Take him there until we solve it. I'll find a way to visit you too and help you deal with this whole mess... Did you talk to Will and Dustin about this?"

"No, I thought it was better to leave it between us. It's so complicated... I don't even know how to explain it all yet."

"Don't you think it's crazy that you discovered a parallel reality, found another version of your father-in-law, and, even so, we are not so shaken? Like, humanity would go into shock knowing that there's another reality with other versions of ourselves. I think El's gift got us used to this madness. I mean, she's almost an X-Men!"

"Wonder woman, please!" we can laugh about it. I think I agree with her. El having “powers” is already so surreal that finding a parallel reality didn't shock me that much. "I love El. Okay, that was out of nowhere, but it's true... I just want her to be okay so that we can move on after everything that happened, you know?"

"I know. I want the same." Max takes my hand and squeezes too hard, but I don't complain. It's her loving way of supporting me. "We will solve this together, ok? We will."

**\-------**

I knock on the door to get El's attention. Her shift ended about one hour ago, but she is still in her office and hasn't even had lunch yet, so I brought food for both of us, even if its almost time to dinner, considering the time.

She greets me with a surprised smile as soon as she sees me standing at the door. When I left for work this morning she was still asleep, so I didn't know what she was wearing until now: a light pink tank top, loose hair, a light pink lipstick... She looks gorgeous.

"Hi!" as I enter the office, closing the door behind me. El gives me an even wider smile when she notices that I brought a lunch-dinner. "You are an angel, thank you for feeding me."

"You're welcome." I kiss her lips quickly before sitting on the chair in front of her table. El removes some papers she was reading before, making room for me to set up our temporary lunch-dinner table. "Did you forget to eat? I called earlier and Beth told me that you hadn't gone out to lunch, you had a busy schedule..." 

"As if you didn't do the same thing much more often than I do..." El defends herself while making room, indicating me to sit next to her, making me carry the chair to the other side of the table. "Why are you here so early? I'm not complaining, it's just curious."

"Ah, I don't know... I want to spend more time with you." I don't feel so bad about saying that because it's still true, I want to spend more time with her, but that was not the reason I left work and came earlier.

"Good to know..." I realize now that she is wearing that black skirt too... ok... "Thank you for coming here earlier, for bringing lunch... it was a busy day for me."

She is excited today, radiant, I would say. I like to see her this way, especially considering everything she has ever lived.

It is also impossible not to think about Hopper in the hospital... is he a father to another El? And he asked about Nancy... and Jonathan Byers... I stop thinking about it when I realize that El has already started eating and I look like a goofy looking at her?! Maybe.

"What's it?" she says with her mouth full of food.

"Hmm?"

"You stood looking at me... Are you okay?" she puts her hand on my knee and I think a little about all this madness that I got into... and the comparison that Max made earlier between Kali and me, about our actions and how it reflects on the people around me. El and I fought about this same topic last week.

"Yes, I'm good. I just... You look beautiful, even with caesar salad sauce all over your face." Ok, I lied, she has no sauce on her face, but I wanted to be a dork and distance myself from these thoughts (and take the opportunity to steal a kiss from her).

"Idiot..." she complains but kisses me back.

The lunch-dinner between us is peaceful and helped me to relax a little bit. I really like her office, it has such a friendly environment and I imagine that it must help her patients feel very comfortable. Will made a great job.

I remember when she came up with the idea of a new and more accessible office and we spent a few months looking around for the perfect place, planning how it would be... I am happy and proud to see this idea is now true.

There must be no one else on this floor. Beth, El's secretary, must have gone home by now, considering that El's shift should also be over two hours ago.

"Hey, why did you stay up late working? You even forgot to eat..." I ask before El makes me eat another piece of the lemon pie I brought as a dessert.

"Ah! So, I was invited to speak at the University of Chicago!" she is so happy with the news and I am so proud of it. It's always exciting for me to see your achievements. "I was invited to talk about my work... At Chicago University! So I spent a lot of time studying everything. You know I'm shy and not goo with presentations or teaching, so..."

"You're great! It will work, I help you train if you want." I pull her into a tight hug and she kisses my neck, making me feel ticklish there. I take revenge on her by tickling her waist until she begs me to stop.

"Okay, stop!" she pulls away a little to scold me but lays her head on my shoulder soon after. "Seriously, I didn't even believe it when the coordinator called me... I even forgot that horrible dream."

 _Horrible dream?_ I have the impression that El holds her breath for a few seconds as if she realized that she said something she shouldn't have...

"What dream? I ask, trying to look at her, brushing some strands of hair from her face. "How was it?"

"Oh..." she moves away from me a little and leans completely in her chair and I place my hand on her exposed knee, partly to give her some security and another part because I really liked the black skirt she is wearing today... "Last Sunday I was at Max and Lucas's house. I went to take a bath and stayed there for a while... I think I dozed off and had a dream, one that seemed too real, you know?"

"Yes, I know," I answer while I remember a horrible nightmare I had days ago. I was in that place, on the other side, going to get Hopper out of there, but I couldn't find him. When I entered the hut, I saw El, but I couldn't get her out of there in time and one of those creatures took her away. "And why did you keep thinking about that dream?"

"Because it seemed like a recurring thing... Do you remember that sometimes I dreamed of myself, a younger version of me? And I was always looking for my dad in a-"

"Abandoned place?" I ask before thinking. I remember now all the times that El told me about these bad dreams with the same things happening: a young version of her, in a dark, cold, and abandoned place, looking for Hopper...

"Yes... And I always looked out for my father. Only this time I woke up on the void, you know?" I confirm while I listen to her speak. "But I felt like I was _really_ there. And then I saw a bathtub, but it wasn't the one I was in, it was another one, and I saw myself in it... I seemed to be about fourteen. There was a counter and a radio too, that's when I understood that I was in a mini isolation pool... I was looking for someone."

"Looking for Hopper?" hearing the description of her dream makes me much more nervous than I imagined... or maybe it's the anxiety making me create absurd connections in my mind.

"Yes. Suddenly I felt something holding my arm," she holds my arm to try to demonstrate how it was in the dream. "and the other El got out of the bathtub and asked me for help to find my father... she said that he was in an upside-down world or something, I didn't understand very well... and then she pulled me into the bathtub with her..."

I don't know how long I'm paralyzed listening to this, just as I don't know if I'm going crazy because I find it all so strange, at the very least. The place El described as abandoned looks a lot like the parallel reality where I found Hopper. And she was always in that place, looking for him.

El can find people by entering what we call _void_ , a place that I would say is a gap between time and space. How, exactly, does she achieve this, I have never been able to understand.

But if on the other side - or upside-down world - there is a Hopper and a cabin with a photo of me in my early teens...

"Mike?" I suddenly leave the trance when I hear El's voice. I was more immersed in this than I would like. "Looks like you got lost somewhere... Are you okay?"

"Yes, I was just thinking, trying to unravel your dream... Maybe it was the stress... Did it happen on Sunday?"

"Yes," she says before eating another piece of lemon pie and offering it to me, but I refuse. "I also heard a strange noise, it sounded like an animal... I don't know. But I think it was a vivid dream because of stress, you know?"

"Yeah, I think that was it... we had that fight..." _a strange noise, like an animal, Sunday..._ "I know we fought because I needed to go to that place and-"

"I don't want to know if you went there or not." she cuts me off, in a voice that is too harsh. "I'm sorry, I just... I need to forget this. The only thing I ask is that you come home every day."

Very different from a few minutes ago, she now looks distant and sad again, as I remember seeing her when we met at dance school last Sunday after I left Hopper at the hospital and went to meet her. I don't want to go through this again, especially today. It's a special day for her.

I hold her face in my hands and rest my forehead on hers, so close that I can feel her breath on my face and the smell of the soft perfume she used this morning, which makes me think about how I wish I had woke up with her today, have breakfast together and go out to work together, she here, in this office, and me at the university, exactly as I had planned nine months ago when I came home.

"I will promise you something and I need you to promise me something too, will you?" I ask without looking into her eyes. "This will be over soon and we will go back to our normal life. I'm going to be a teacher again, we're getting married next month and we're going to live together until we're old and toothless..." she smiles this time, that sweet smile I love to see.

"And what do you want me to promise?"

"That will wake me up at dawn if I have those bad dreams again, ok? I take care of you."

"Okay, I promise."

El hugs me tightly and I take advantage of her proximity to reassure me at least a little bit. Now that I know about the last “dream” she had, I can't stop thinking about all the others she has told me since I came back, in the similarity of this abandoned place with what I knew, of the existence of other versions of ourselves.

I still have a lot to discover with the other Hopper.


	30. Understanding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!! Some questions are being answered... Let me know what you think! :)

"So you want to leave the project?" _yes, asshole_ , I think. The general director of the research is a high-ranking military man that I don't remember very well. Rogger is very short compared to me, but he still has that cold, judgmental look under anyone. I came here to resign. 

Honestly, I thought it would be easier, but I already broke the news about ten minutes ago and I am still sitting there, waiting for a response from Director General Rogger-something. "Why?"

I cannot avoid my clear dissatisfaction with this conversation.

"This project is taking up a lot of my personal life. In addition to everything I've seen happen here... and there, on the other side. I still feel bad about everything..." I say, remembering seeing Connor being eaten alive by those bizarre creatures... and for having almost died too. "I don't feel healthy... psychologically speaking."

"Your exams show that you're okay." he returns. "The same with the psychologist's analysis-"

"Look, my contract ends in two days, sir. I want to anticipate that and I think I did everything I could for this project." he doesn't even look at me while I speak. I wonder if he paid the least attention.

"Your contract was renewed until May 2009, Mr. Wheeler."

"What? I didn't agree with this."

"Since when it's necessary?" this time he looks into my eyes, intimidating me. "You know a lot about this project and we discovered a lot while you were away, some... expansions, so to speak. I would like you to study Owens' discoveries. He's old and you've left him alone for the past few days... To be honest, I don't like him very much."

"Owens is a respected scientist, Sir. You should trust his work." maybe it's very wrong of me to push Owens deeper into this hellhole that is Hawkins' lab, but it was he was the one who threw me here in the first place, so...

"I know that. The point is that I always look at Owens and I don't know if he's on our side or not if he's reliable if he's good. He is difficult to read."

Interestingly, the feeling that El and I always had with Owens is the same as the one described by Rogger. We never know whether or not we can trust Owens. He brought me here, he knows everything about El, he is still here and locked up for days studying that thing down there. His speech is the same, that he's here to “prevent something terrible”. Owens is a difficult person to read.

"But you're different, Wheeler." His rough voice captures my attention. "You are good. It's easy to seeyou."

**\-------**

Liv is still silent after hearing that the man we took from that place is a young, old-time version of my late father-in-law. And that Rogger did not fire me, quite the contrary, he renewed my contract without my knowing it. And that there is not much I can do now to reverse this.

We are in an isolated spot in the Hawkins forest, far enough from the lab and anyone's presence. Snow has covered much of the area and the cold is unbearable. Worse than Chicago.

"Wake up, Liv." I try to get her attention before drinking some more of the coffee we bought on the way here.

"So that shit is another reality with alternative versions of ourselves?" She asks, still confused. "And you'll stay here until May?"

"No, I'll find a way to leave this place," I answered the easiest question first. "About the other side, I don't know... the other Hopper didn't say much, but I think the world he lived in was normal compared to that place."

"What if it's a gap... I don't know, a corridor that divides our times... what is that smell? God..." Liv is clearly bothered by the smell of something, but I can't feel it because I have a bit of a cold these days.

"Smell of what? My nose is clogged..." she makes a gesture with her hand, indicating that I can ignore the matter. "About being a "corridor", I need to see... I'll try to talk to Hopper. In fact, we need to go, it's getting late and I still need to drive back to Chicago."

Liv agrees with me and we start to walk together towards my car, which I parked through the forest, hiding it from those who pass by the track. We walk for about five or six minutes until I feel Liv pull my coat and show me one of the trees.

"Mike, look at that... on the tree trunk." she calls me and points towards a tree almost completely covered by snow. Almost, because there is a hole in the trunk.

"Some animals must have lived there because of the cold." I say. I really need to get out of here. "Come on, Liv."

She ignores me completely and goes to that tree, getting down a little to look at the hole in the trunk. Liv covers her nose with one hand as soon as she gets very close.

"Can you get a branch for me?" I choose not to complain too much and look for a branch that is not that frozen. "Thanks... come here."

"It looks disgusting, Liv. Get rid of it, let's go..." I say as I hand it over. I take the opportunity to take a good look at the cavity and it is _really_ disgusting, covered by something gelatinous... I could say that it looks a bit like a...

"A small gate, right?" Liv completes my thinking. I place my open palm on the spot to get an idea of the size and I find that it must be about 8 inches. The smell is so awful that I could feel it when I approached, even though I had the flu.

"It looks like... It could be some fungus too. We would need to do some tests..." I say thinking about my old wristwatch that I left at home this morning. "Do you want me to punch this thing with the branch?"

"No, let me do it." Liv says and tries to introduce the branch into the cavity at once, but the gelatinous layer is viscous and she ends up needing to put more force than imagined. When Liv manages to get past the layer, her arm ends up going into the trunk and I pull her back.

But obviously, there is a very strange part to that. The trunk of the tree is not very thick, so it makes no sense for Liv's arm to have come in completely.

"Jesus!" she says while trying to get stabilize a little. "It seemed to have no end, I felt nothing..."

I approach the tree to try to understand a little what just happened. I stretch my arm forward, at least to get an idea of the depth of the trunk compared to my arm. The trunk goes from my shoulder to half of my forearm, so if I tried to do the same thing as Liv by putting my arm in that hole, I would barely be able to stretch it. Liv does the same test and the result is similar to mine. She wouldn't be able to stretch her arm in there either. And there was still the branch.

"You could not feel the other side of the trunk, right?" I ask, still scared. "The trunk is hollow, but you couldn't touch the other side, right?"

"It depends on what you call on the other side..." I must have made a very scared face, only that would explain her attitude soon after. "Anyway, I think I can keep my coat and do some tests tomorrow in the lab. Can we hide it for a while?" Olivia covers the exposed part of the trunk with a lot of snow before turning to me with an urgent look.

"Rogger told me that Owens discovered some expansions, Liv."

"I still don't know about it... Come on, let's go." she needs to pull me a little until I start to follow her towards my car. "Look, you're dealing with a lot of things at the same time... Look, I'll try to find out what that is while you talk to your Hopper, ok?"

"But, Liv-"

"Michael, go to Chicago. I'll find a way to find out. Centralizing all these problems now will only be worse... Please." Liv makes me get in my car and still closes the door. "Let me know when you arrive. Or if you need anything. Meet me here tomorrow before we go to the lab. Don't tell Owens... not yet."

She leaves me alone when going the other way, looking for her own car. The time is too tight to disobey Liv and try to figure out what it is.

I still need to talk to Hopper.

**\-------**

This Hopper is not happy to see me, which is strange to me. The Hopper I knew, my father-in-law, always made it clear that he liked having me around. Before El, I had two girlfriends, and meeting their parents was a terrible feeling. They were rude and intimidating to me. Hopper was never mean to me.

Max wasn't in the hospital today, but she discharged Hopper and my name was his primary contact, so it was pretty easy to get him out of there.

He just opened his mouth to ask me where we were going, ignoring all my attempts to start a conversation during the car ride. I brought him to the house that "my" Hopper lived in when he was alive. El hasn't been here in months, so I think it's safe. She is also very busy, which is a relief to me because 1. She won't have time to come here and find the other Hopper; 2. She won't have time to speak to Kali.

Speaking of her, I know that the time she "gave me" to tell El everything is ending, but I don't even know how to tell her that my contract was renewed even without my opinion on the matter, who's to say that I casually I found a younger version of her father in a parallel reality with some wild animals...

As if reading my mind, El just texted me asking what I want for dinner today and what time I should be home. As soon as I park the car, I reply to her message saying that I should take a while to get home, but the dinner can be anything she wants. I think she may leave the office late today, so she will order something to eat.

"Who are you talking to, boy?" Hopper's harsh voice bothers me a little, but I don't have the right to mind it. God knows what he's feeling right now...

"With my fiancee. She wants to know what I want for dinner." I answer without saying El's name, but I think he knows it. If he was able to recognize the bracelets I wear... "Well ... shall we get in?"

Hopper doesn't answer my question, he just gets out of the car and I get up to accompany him to the door. I used my spare key to get inside, but I already have a copy to give Hopper as well.

I have not thought about what he will find here - I don't even know what El kept here and which belonged to her father - but I hope it helps to clarify some things between us.

The house is a little dirty, more than I expected, but still too clean for an empty house. The Hopper who is with me accompanies me, still suspicious, around the house. He looks at small things, like the fabric on the sofa, the TV in the living room (I hope it still works), the stereo... some pictures on the wall. He looks away as soon as he realizes that I'm watching him too.

"Is your name Michael Wheeler? For real?" he asks me looking while looking me in the eyes. I nod, but I think he needs something more to believe, so I take out my wallet and hand him my identity card, which he holds for a while absorbing what he reads and sees there. "December 23, 1971... same date."

"Same date... what?" I ask.

"Same date as Michael's birthday... The one I knew. But you are 36 and he is 14." Hopper returns the document to me and I put it back in my wallet while I watch him sit on the couch. I do the same while trying to absorb the idea that, as I understand it, there is a still-teen version of me elsewhere. "How did you find me, Michael?"

"Don't you remember?" he doesn't answer me, he just looks at me waiting for an answer. "I was set on a scientific project in Hawkins whose goal is to enter other... other places. The team managed to force an entrance through a sensitive place in the city, using a machine with a high concentration of energy... they opened a kind of portal that took me to the place where I met you."

"The Upside Down..." he whispers, but I don't quite understand.

"Upside Down? What do you mean?" 

"It's the nickname you and your friends gave that place. Something with a game that you like..." he seems nervous and I offer him water, but he refuses and goes back to explaining what this upside-down is. "I don't know how, but this place exists. Will got lost there in 1983 and-"

"William Byers?" Is there a version of Will too? I know he also knows Nancy since he said her name at the hospital, but I have been in denial for the past few days. "Who do you know? In your time, I mean..."

"Well, a lot of people! I'm the chief of police of Hawkins, boy! In 83', Will got lost in the Mirkwood forest. We looked for him everywhere... but he was not trapped in Hawkins, he was in the upside down. I didn't believe Joyce when she said she could see and feel Will... it took me days to believe her. We go into the upside down and rescued him. Joyce and I did that. And I know Karen, Ted, Holly, and Nancy Wheeler. Your entire family."

"My family?" I don't know a person named Holly, so I find it strange. "Who's Holly? And how did you get to know my family when you were chief in Hawkins?"

"Because you live in Hawkins?! And how you don't know Holly, she is your little sister, she is only 4 years old! Do you know Will Byers but don't know your sister?"

"Okay, calm down!" I get irritated by that. How do I have a sister? And how did Will get stuck in that place in 1983?

"My family?" I don't know a person named Holly, so I find it strange. "Who's Holly? And how did you get to know my family when you were chief in Hawkins?"

"Because you live in Hawkins?! And how you don't know Holly, she is your little sister, she is only 4 years old! Do you know Will Byers but don't know your sister?"

"Okay, calm down!" I get irritated by that. How do I have a sister? And how did Will get stuck in that place in 1983?

My head feels like it's going to explode, but at least I can get an idea. I get up from the couch and take the photos that are around the room, choosing which one to show him. I choose to show a photo from 1998, me and the Hopper I met, side by side on a beach here in Chicago.  
I hand the photograph over to the Hopper in front of me and let him analyze it for a bit before starting to explain my reality.

"This photo was taken in 1998 here in Chicago. This is me and the Hopper I knew is by my side, much older than you. In this world we are in, I don't have two sisters, just one and her name is Nancy Wheeler. My father, Ted Wheeler, accepted a job offer and we moved to another city, we were years away from Hawkins. To be honest, I started to visit Hawkins after this project that I started working there. Will Byers is a good friend of mine, as are Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair and Max Mayfield, the doctor who saved your life and accompanied you in the hospital. My friends and I met at school when we were teenagers, but our choices separated us during college. Will went to study arts and architecture in New York and Dustin studied computer science at MIT. I stayed here in Chicago with Lucas, studying at the University of Chicago, where we met Max and El."

"Do you know El?" he interrupts me by asking a question that seems rhetorical as if he just wanted to hear from me to accept. "Does she know me?"

"She knew the Jim Hopper from the photo... he died in a car accident almost five years ago. It was very difficult for all of us when he passed away." Suddenly, I feel like I'm reliving that moment, El getting a call from the hospital reporting on the accident that killed Hopper, going to the morgue to recognize his body. A nightmare. "El was very unsettled at the time and... anyway, it was difficult."

Hopper spends some time looking at the photo I gave him, trying to believe my story. To be honest, sometimes I think I am in an endless nightmare and that at some point El will wake me up and everything will be fine, as I planned when I returned to Chicago.

"Can I see El?" I get a little tense with this request, but he speaks again soon after. "A photo of her... The today-El..."

"Yes." I get a photo I have in my wallet, one I took in less than a month ago on a tour we did together. In it, El is smiling while showing off a huge hamburger that she made me eat half that day.

Hopper looks impressed as soon as he sees the photograph and even smiles. He stays like that for a few minutes, in silence, just looking at the photograph I gave him. In the meantime, I try to make sense of everything he has told me so far, like my family and friends living in Hawkins, me having a younger sister, my parents being together.

I start to go through my memory and remember when my father received a job offer in another city, in less than a year in Hawkins. It took him a while to decide to accept.

Perhaps, in addition to the temporal divergence, these parallel realities are divided by our choices. Maybe I would have met El as a child if my father had chosen to stay in Hawkins, maybe my parents had decided to have another child to save the marriage. Or maybe they love each other in Hopper's reality.

The only thing that connects my reality and that of the 1983 Hopper is a gate in Hawkins' lab.

I pull out my pocketbook to write down some theories to discuss it with Liv later and I notice that my phone starts to ring. It's Kali, but I decide to ignore it. A lot has happened today and I don't know if I will be able to withstand her pressure on me. One problem at a time.

"How is she?" Hopper asks me after a while. "How I met her... where she grew up... these things. Sorry, not me, the other Hopper."

"He rescued her once, in 1983, following my timeline." one more thing to consider, the year El was rescued and Will's disappearance in the parallel reality. "She lived in a bad place... her father was a bad guy."

"Martin Brenner, right? Your El's father?"

"Yes..."

"And the bad place she lived is Hawkins' lab?" He seems a little agitated when asking me and I think about how not to expose the whole story to this Hopper. I don't know him, after all.

"Yes, with Martin Brenner. Did you know him?"

"That son of a bitch? Yes. He kept my El as a prisoner in the lab, like a rat. He tested her all the time until one day she accidentally opened the gate and so Will disappeared." _Did El open the gate? What the fuck?_ "El ran away and ended up being found by you, Lucas and Dustin the day after Will disappeared. You found her in the Mirkwood forest and you took her home, she spent a week hiding there!"

"In my house?" I ask a little shocked... I think. "How old were we? And how come my parents didn't realize that there was a girl in my house?"

"Because your parents are muggles and did not pay attention to their children! You were a child, about 12 years old... Anyway, she helped us find Will, but she fought one of those monsters and got stuck in the upside down. She managed to get out of there, but I didn't find her until months later... We live in a cabin in Hawkins." he looks distressed, half lost... maybe desperate. He looks back at El's picture for a few seconds and takes a deep breath before continuing. "The gate... The lab guys hid the gate and I covered it, Owens was the leader."

"Owens? Sam Owens?" _Is this guy everywhere?_

"Yes, Sam Owens. But what exists in the inverted world started to spread to Hawkins... My El managed to close the gate."

"How did she do that when she was about 12?" he freezes as soon as I finish the question and I can already imagine why. If the two El were trapped in Hawkins' lab under the orders of Martin Brenner...

"With her mind." _as I imagined_. "She inherited some skills from her mother... Brenner took advantage of that. Owens managed to help me with the documents and I adopted her. Her name is Jane Hopper. El is my daughter in my time."

Then that's it. The other El opened this gate in another reality unintentionally, with the power of the mind. She ran away, Will got lost. The other Mike found her and hid her for a while. She got lost, but the other Hopper found her and then, she closed the gate.

"My El is also called Jane Hopper and has these... skills. Telekinesis. And she can find people with the mind... Your El too?"

"Yes... This photo..." he gives me back the photo I gave him some time ago. " They look like they are the same person. But my El is still a little girl, she is only 14 years old, she has learned to read and write despite everything and... She thinks I am dead."

I start to think about how the other El must be now. If it was awful when Hopper died and El was 31, I imagine how it must be like when you're 14 and alone. From what I understand, they were only two years together.

He must have thought about it for the first time now since he's paralyzed on the couch looking at nothing. _He also lost his daughter_ , I think.

My cell phone rings again, but it was just a message from El telling me that she just got home. It is after eight at night, so I really need to leave and I feel terrible for having to go and leave him here, alone.

"Hopper?" I call him and realize that he is crying now. "I need to go, I'm sorry. I have some things in the car that are for you, can you wait for me here?" he says yes and I run to get the small suitcase I left in the car.

Before I go back to the house, I remember that I have some pictures of El in the car, some that she recently revealed and left there. Maybe I can leave it here with him, at least so he can see her. I take a quick look at the photos and pick out a few that wouldn't add much to Hopper, like a photo of places we've visited and boys' nonsense.

He's still in the same place when I get back, he hasn't even moved. He keeps looking at an empty space, probably still trying to understand what's going on. I remember I still don't know how he got here and I think about how to ask him.

"Hey, Hop." I use the nickname I gave my father-in-law when he was still with us. "In this suitcase, there are some clothes that belonged to Hopper, some hygiene things, a phone with my number in case you need something. There's also money to buy food or whatever you need. Sorry for not tidying up the house before I brought you, it's that everything happened so fast..."

"It's ok, boy. Thank you."

"I... El revealed these photos recently, I thought you might want to see it. I think you will recognize some people... I will come back here tomorrow." He gladly accepts the photos but does not look at them as soon as I hand him over. I think he will need some time for that. "Need to go. See you tomorrow."

"See you, boy"

I say goodbye to him, but I'm slow to leave. I really need to understand how he got there.

"Hop... that place where I found you... is that the upside down?" I start with this question.

"Yes, it is." he answers and he must have already imagined what my next question would be. "On July 4, 1985, we discovered that some Russians infiltrated Hawkins and created a machine to reopen the gate. Joyce Byers and I tried to destroy the machine, but a Russian got in the way of our plans. I ended up getting into a physical fight with him and broke something in the machine. I got stuck between the gate and a strange ray of electricity coming out of the machine. There was no more time, so I asked Joyce to destroy the machine, which would kill me... It the price... I preferred to die and save everyone."

"Did Joyce agree?"

"Yes, but I had a last-minute idea. Before she managed to turn the keys and destroy the machine, I ran to the end of the room and saw that there was a gap between the platform and the gate, there was also a ladder. I jumped towards the gate. I thought I would be able to get back in time and escape the explosion of the machine, but the gate closed very quickly. I spent some time walking in that place, I thought that El could find me and get me out of there... but it was you who found me. Joyce must think I'm dead... Maybe El isn't looking for me."

"Maybe she is." I answer. I think his El is looking for him. "Something may be interfering with the search."

"Yeah, maybe." - he seems sad as he speaks... I don't want to tell him that my El is interfering in some way, without meaning to. I deduce this because of the dreams she has been having. "You can go, boy. I'll be fine. See you tomorrow."

I need to think it over before I talk about it and fill him - or not - with hope. So I do what I need for today. One thing at a time.

"See you tomorrow, Hop."


	31. Replacement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small chapter! Let me know what you think. Feedbacks are always welcome! :)

__

_I'm fucked up_. That's the only thing on my mind since I left Hawkins. I feel lost and scared too. Kali called me three more times while I was driving home after meeting to Hopper. I ignored all of her phone calls.

The small sense of relief I had was to find El, who had arrived just a few minutes before me and, as I imagined, had bought our dinner at the restaurant we like and is very close to our home.

I decided to take a shower and maybe forget a little bit about everything that happened today and what may happen tomorrow, but it wasn't much help, or I'm too slow to put my mind in the right place.

I only realized that I turned on the shower and stayed here for a long time because I felt El hug me. I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn't even see her go into the bathroom, let alone the shower stall.

I'm sure I couldn't hide my tiredness, discomfort, fear or whatever because she had already bathed when I arrived and, despite the hot water in the shower, she would not bathe more than once on the same night in the middle of winter from Chicago, but I'm not going to complain. All the relief I was looking for is in her presence.

I have my back to El as she hugs me tight, wrapping her arms around my body, resting her hands on my chest. Once in a while, I feel her lips on the skin of my back and latter on my shoulders. Her gestures are so simple, but they have such a big effect on me.

"You didn't make it, did you?" El's voice is low and mixed with the sound of hot water coming out of the shower, but I understand what she just said and _why_. El knows that I quit today, even though there are two days left to “end” my contract.

"Why do you say that?" and I know the answer to that question, I just didn't dare to say no yet, I couldn't get rid of that lab and I'm trying to win a few seconds before I need to talk about it for real.

"Because you're sad," she kisses my left shoulder... "the opposite of how you left this morning."

She always knows what I'm feeling, I don't know if it's some hidden skill, her profession, or all the time that we've known and lived together.

"I could not." Even frustrated, I know I need to talk about what happened at Hawkins, but I'm too much of a coward to turn around and at least look at her. "I resigned, said that I was not well there, but the general director did not accept it... he renewed my contract until May. He had already renewed. They didn't even consult me."

I hear nothing but the shower for a few seconds and I feel anxious about it. May 2009 is five more months in that place, we did not plan that. Our plan is to get married in January, spend some time away, maybe in Dublin with Nancy. But everything is unstable while I'm at Hawkins.

"It won't happen, El. I won't be there until May." I try to lighten the mood and at least hear some response, but she doesn't say anything, I just feel her face on my back. "El?"

"Yes, sure... There is nothing we can do." her answer is slow as if she was still trying to assimilate the news. "Are we still getting married in January?"

"Of course, yes! January 22, as we agreed. This is not going to change." I reaffirm verbally, but I don't know how safe I am about everything that comes from now on, or at least while I'm stuck in that place.

Again, I didn't dare to look El in the eye and say that, but she didn't continue the matter. We were silent for a few minutes and I decide to take a real shower and stop wasting water. I thought she was going to accompany me too, but she just washed her face and left the box, wrapping herself in one of the towels.

"I'll pack up for dinner." she says, still not looking at me, before leaving the bathroom. I don't think she felt safe about our future, either.

We dined in silence, just the sound of the TV tuned to some news channel that I don't pay any attention to, the sound of the cold wind that runs through the streets of Chicago...

She bought my favorite food: roast beef. I remember that my mother cooked this dish whenever I asked and the taste is unique. Too bad she lost her will to cook (and live) thanks to my father's bullshit. The roast beef from the restaurant we like to visit is what reminds me of my mom's food, so El buys food there when we want to celebrate something after a busy day.

I know that El is upset about the whole situation and I understand what she is feeling. I wanted to be a little better today and be able to offer her some sense of security

"Are you going to work tomorrow?" El asks me and I realize that she has finished dinner. "It will snow a lot, you better not go... It's four hours driving."

"Where did you see that?" unfortunately, I need to work tomorrow, I need to find out what Owens is doing underground and investigate that tree with Liv. Maybe visit Hopper.

"On TV, Mike." El picks things up from the table and takes them to the dishwasher. "Anyway, if you go, be careful with the road, ok?"

"I will. Don't worry." she gives me a half-smile before turning on the washing machine. She is also wearing one of my shirts, which are always too big on her body, but it is what helps me to have at least something that brings me back to normal. "Hey, what are we going to do for Christmas?"

"Ah, Dustin invited us to spend Christmas with him. He wants to celebrate your birthday and Christmas, like a marathon. You know him." we both smile at that. Dustin was always the most party-loving in the group. "But I've been thinking about your parents these days, we haven't visited them in a while."

"They haven't called us for a long time." she scolds me with her eyes as soon as I finish speaking. I know that my parents rarely make the least effort to talk to us and I do the same... "I just think that if they cared, they would call more often. The first step need not always be mine, El."

"Okay. Dustin, then." I can't tell if she is comfortable with this conversation because she has her back to me, fixing something in the fridge and I am silent too. For a while, the only thing you can hear at home is the noise of a TV commercial.

This silence reminds me of my conversation with Hopper about the other Mike, about my parents still being together in another reality, about me having a little sister ... I keep wondering what their relationship is like if it's healthy if my father is at least a little better if my mother has more self-love ... my parents. I need to stop considering them as my parents. They are the parents of another Mike, not mine.

"What if there is another Mike somewhere and he is better than me... would you like to meet him? I don't know, I died and-"

"What?" she looks at me like I have two heads or something. It was a strange question, but I'm trying to figure out what to do with Hopper, with Kali, with me... "Stop it, Mike."

She approaches where I am and I take the opportunity to pull her to me until she sits on my lap and it is good to smell her again. We are so close to each other that I can feel her breath against my face.

"Imagine that something happened to me and I'm not here anymore, but you found another Mike, from another reality... would you like to meet him?"

"No. You can't replace someone, Mike." she says it with such certainty that it surprises me. "When we split up, I spent a few months alone in this apartment. Sometimes I went to my father's old house, but I was still alone. It took me a while to understand that there was no escape from it, that my father would not return and I had already lost you too. One day I decided to go out with Kali and we went to a very distant bar, almost leaving the city. I met a guy there and he was so like you physically that I accepted when he kissed me because I needed to feel everything I felt with you again, but it didn't. I insisted and drank a lot that night, trying to move on..." 

"I know, I felt that way with Liv too." this is the first time I've talked about it with El. Until then, only Will knew about the circumstances of my first meeting with Liv. "I felt guilty."

"I know the feeling... I remember he took me to his car and then... happened. It needed to happen because I needed to understand that I cannot replace you or anyone I lose, be it you, my father... my mother. If I ever lose you and find another Mike from another time, world, reality, or anything you call it, he wouldn't be you. I think it would be like losing you again, and I can't. I can't live those losses again, I don't want to, even if it were possible." 

Perhaps that is the answer I needed. Hoppers, Mikes, Teresas Ives, Els, Nancys... everyone who is from that other place is not ours, it's not us, I need to put this in my mind once and for all.

To tell El that I found a Hopper just to get him out of it later ... It would be like losing him again. I will go through this, the loss, anguish, and sadness when the other Hopper needs to leave. I know I'm going to feel all that pain I felt five years ago when I heard that our Hopper was gone. And now I know, too, that El doesn't have to go through this, I can't allow her to suffer all of that again.

"You always untangle my confused mind." she gives me the first smile since I got home and a huge weight comes off my back. "Thanks for letting me come back to your life, El."

"Thanks for coming back." the hug I receive is so powerful as if it has all the strength I need to move forward and I can think about what to do in the coming months, what are my goals, what do I want for us two.

Hopper needs to go back to his time, to his El, so that I can move forward with my El, my time, my reality.

I just don't know how to do this yet.


	32. Spreading

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! I’m really happy about all the feedbacks I’m receiving. Thanks for reading! ❤️
> 
> I’ve not reviewed this, so I apologize for any mistakes.

I am finishing the tie when I feel El jump on my back, giving me a huge scare that makes her have a fit of laughter as she passes her legs around my waist and clings to my body to keep her balance.

"Haha, how funny." I hold her legs to keep her body firm on me. "Are you my backpack now?"

"Yes, now you can take me wherever you want," she says as she finishes tying my tie. We are facing the mirror, in our room, and I think about how I wanted our mornings to always be like this. El is just wearing one of my shirts and I can't help thinking about her legs around me... terrible time to think about it since I'm leaving for work. "I prepared your breakfast, but don't eat while driving, okay? It's dangerous."

"Okay. Thanks, El... I like it when you spoil me like that."

"It's special for your birthday. We are going to celebrate all week because it's your first birthday with me after three years, so I need to make up for all the time we lost." El gets rid of me and makes me sit on the edge of our bed. "Today is the first day of the anniversary marathon. Ready for the first gift?"

"I do not know. What is it?"

"Lie there and close your eyes." I do what she tells me without questioning anything. _Fuck the job_ , I think. My mind is already filled with the idea of enjoying the morning with her.

I can feel her on the bed and I almost open my eyes when I realize that she is now sitting on me. Putting my hands on your thighs is inevitable.

I think I know what my present will be this morning and, even after more than a decade together, I still feel that anxiety, that immense desire to feel her body. I'm so submissive now that she can do whatever she wants with me.

I'm about to open my eyes and kiss her when I feel something soft hitting me in the face and her loud laughter filling our room. I haven't heard that sound in a while.

"Pillow war?" I say, laughing, as soon as I open my eyes and realize what hit me. "Really? How old are you?"

"I'm ten!" and I get hit again "And you're so-"

She does not complete the sentence because it is my turn to attack, which causes a senseless pillow war. I think we're both more childish than our friends' children, but that doesn't matter now. The only thing that interests me is having fun with her this morning.

"Wait, wait..." El asks me after losing in the war. She is still on top of me and takes advantage of my fragility to provoke me more, placing herself on my lap, asking me something she already knows (and felt) the answer to. "Do you want it? Won't you be late?"

"Of course I want!" I watch as her hands goes to the shirt she is wearing and start to unbutton it slowly. "Is this all a gift or a plan to keep me at home?

"Did it work?" I barely hear your question because my mind can only register her scene by taking off her shirt and my heart is beating so hard... all the sound around me is a buzz.

I get even more lost when our lips meet in a kiss that should be sweet, but it becomes something much more urgent seconds later. She always buries her fingers in my hair while she kisses me and it has always driven me crazy.

I turn our bodies on the bed, getting on top of her this time, considering this “control” as a prize for winning the pillow fight, but I know that she controls me.

"You are always so beautiful..." I confess while I admire her body and distribute some kisses on her breasts until I reach my - _our_ \- favorite spot, behind her ear.

I feel her delicate hand taking off my belt and unzipping my pants and I deepen the kiss as soon as she touches me. I'm starting to believe that this is going to be the best morning of my week when I hear an irritating noise from a phone. And it's not mine.

"El, please ignore it."

"What if it's important?" I even make a sad face to convince her, but I can't. "Keep going, I'll just ask to call later..."

Of course, I continue. I don't wait a second before I kiss her again and I take off her panties too just to provoke and see if she ignores the phone. 

_Please, El, we can return the call._

I have an infallible idea to take your attention back to me. I go down my body and I'm about to kiss her when she closes her legs for me, but I don't have time to make another sad face because I hear that damn name.

"Yes, Kali. Mike is at home... slow down!" she looks at me strangely and I try to hide my internal fear and despair. And anger.

Kali called me several times yesterday and I ignored her. She wants - she demands - that I tell El about Hopper.

"What does she want? Give me the phone." El pushes my hand away and I need to think fast. I know Kali, she can talk about Hopper right now, if she wants.

"Kali, look... I'm a little busy right now, but I'm going to ask Mike, okay? If he told me what?" El looks at me with a crooked smile and I don't know if I should take her phone and throw it out the window or just run away as fast as I can. "Well, if it's something important, he needs to tell me himself, Kali. Can I call you later?"

_No no no no no._

"El, let me see what she wants..." I stretch my hand and she hands me the cell phone, a little impatient. I start to think that Kali has told what she knows, but El starts to take off my tie, which indicates that she still has something else in mind. "Hi, Kali."

"Now you decide to talk to me?" her voice is altered and I wonder if it's just irritation with me. "Tell El everything today. And find me before or after work, whatever."

"Look, Kali, I don't have time for this, okay?" 

"Michael, seriously. Meet me today. We need to talk... I went to the house and found him and-"

"Okay. I'll call you later." I hang up the phone without waiting for your answer.

I am angry. Incredibly angry. If any of those shitty guys from my job was in front of me now, I would take all my anger out on him.

Kali didn't need to go and find the other Hopper and God knows what she has told him. And worse, she called El and, from what I understood, hinted that I am hiding something.

"Hey, what's up?" the way El tries to get my attention back now makes me sure Kali hasn't told him anything about Hopper. "Don't be angry... I'll talk to her, okay? Something's wrong, her voice was weird... I'm going after her."

"No, I will." I hold her by the arm before she takes the clothes back and starts to leave. I need to prevent El from finding Kali and everything going down the drain. "She asked to talk to me and I also think her voice sounds weird. Let me go, okay?"

"Hey, what's up?" the way El tries to get my attention back now makes me sure Kali hasn't told him anything about Hopper. "Don't be angry... I'll talk to her, okay? Something's wrong, her voice was weird... I'm going after her."

"No, I will." I hold her by the arm before she takes the clothes back and starts to leave. I need to prevent El from finding Kali and everything going down the drain. "She asked to talk to me and I also think her voice sounds weird. Let me go, okay?"

I get out of bed, zipping up my pants again, and it irritates me to think that Kali has ruined my entire morning. At least something good I could have before I went to Hawkins. I'm almost leaving the room when I hear El calling me and I realize that I was going to leave without even talking to her properly or saying goodbye.

"Mike, do you think she went back to drinking or using drugs?" she is so worried. Your voice is so low that I barely hear it. I sit back on the bed and stay close to her. "Kali was very weird."

"I don't know, El..." My answer is sincere. I know Kali can be a motherfucker at times, but her voice was too altered to be just a scene against me. "If she is under the influence of something, I think you better stay and I go, right?"

"I've been clean for over a year, Mike! It's not like I'm going to take drugs or anything just because I'm close to her!" 

"Love, I trust you!" I hold her arms and try to give her some security. I trust El, but I don't trust Kali and I don't know how I'm going to find her in a little while. I'm afraid the scene will trigger something in El, I don't want us to go through it all again. "But she asked to talk to me and I'll try to find her. If she needs help, I'll fix it, okay? I call you."

I take back the shirt she was wearing before and dress her body and she gives me back with a tight hug.

"Kali told me that you had something to tell me, something serious. And that if you hadn't told me yet, you'd be an asshole." El even tries to smile a little with the last part, but I can't seem amused by Kali's threat. "What do you need to tell me?"

I think about last night, about her telling me that she didn't want to meet another Mike from another reality, because it wouldn't be me. You can't replace a person. You can't replace Hopper. So I lie again about what I “need” to tell you, but I don't feel remorse for it, at least not now. I know that I am doing what is right.

"Nothing. She is talking about my contract being renewed. I was nervous and afraid to tell you. Kali must have found out through Owens and spent the whole day yesterday calling me, but I didn't answer her." she believes me, I know she does. I keep telling myself that I'm doing the right thing.

"Ok... I don't feel comfortable with what she did. Like, call me and say you hide something from me. If it's something I need to know, you're going to tell me anyway, aren't you?" 

"Yes." I'm fucked up. "Need to go. See you later, okay?" I feel something odd in answering her question, but it is not remorse. I kiss El to try to ward off this bad feeling. "Love you."

"Love you too."

**\--------**

Kali is at the house where I left Hopper. I don't even know how to measure the anger I'm feeling when I see her in the room, with him, as if they were great friends or something. And she is too anxious.

"Hi," I say as soon as I enter the house. Hopper seems confused by the situation. Poor thing. "I see you've already met."

"She is El's sister." Hopper speaks and I notice a certain discomfort in his speech. "My El met Kali once. Another Kali."

"Oh really? At fourteen? How cute. I hope the Kali of your time is nicer, Hopper." I know I shouldn't joke now. Kali gets up from the couch and even tries to answer me, but I interrupt her. "Come on, let's go upstairs and talk."

"We can talk here, don't you think?" she replies with a coarse smile and that's when I'm sure she is very upset. "It's good because Hopper can hear you and get to know you better. Hopper, did you know that Mike is lying to El and you don't want to tell her that he found you? Do you think this is fair?"

Hopper doesn't answer it, but I feel nervous about the whole situation. If it weren't for him here, I think I would have dragged Kali to the hospital because she is clearly high or something. 

"And what do you know about being fair to someone or not?" I answer, trying to stay calm. "Kali, leave Hopper alone, okay? He needs some time to think... we all do, ok?"

"Seriously, Mike? He needs to get back to his home!"

"You don't even know what his fucking place is, Kali, you just want to fuck it all up again!" I lose my temper this time. "What do you want now, huh? Are you high?"

"Okay, enough!" Hopper intervenes this time and he looks very angry. I don't judge you for that. "Michael, Kali wants to help me get back and I accept her help, but-"

"What? Seriously, I don't understand. Kali wants El to know about you, but she also wants to help you go? You can't do both!"

"Michael, can you hear me?" Hopper asks after taking a deep breath. "I need to go back to my daughter."

"Yeah but our El needs to know you are here!" Kali counters and I give up on understanding her. "Do you know how many times she told me she would like to have at least one chance to see you again? Mike obviously doesn't know because he left and married another woman, but I do! Because I was with her! And it is not fair that you decide this way." 

"Kali, that's enough." I use a calmer voice this time because being aggressive now won't do any good... and I hate to be reminded that I left El alone in Chicago. "He is not El's father and you are not ok. Let's go."

She pushes me away and tries to slap me a few times, but Hopper holds her back. I start to worry about Kali after this.

"Kali, listen to me." Hopper talks to her much more calmly than I could have if I was in a better situation. "I'm not your El's father. I don't want her to find me just to see me leave again. You told me what happened to her."

"I know, I hate to feel guilty for what happened. That's why I need her to know about you, that's why I need to return you to your El." She looks at me before continuing to speak."But I can't do it alone."

"I can help." I answer without any security of what I am talking about. Actually, I didn't want to have to go back to that place at all, but I know that I need to help this Hopper get home. "I don't know how yet, I need some time..."

"We don't have time, Mike." Kali tells me in a sad voice. "That thing is spreading, Owens is trying to stop, but he doesn't know how and you haven't helped much."

"Is it spreading?" Hopper seems to be panicking when asking that question. "Underneath?"

"Yes. At least that's what Owens told me."

"Under where?" I ask, still confused. "Seriously, what's going on?"

"What lives in that upside-down world is spreading across Hawkins, Mike." Hopper seems too sure of what he's saying. "The same thing happened in my reality. I need to go back to my daughter, maybe the gate is still open there..."

"Okay. Kali and I are going to find a way to take you back. Then we find a way to stop this thing in Hawkins and-"

"Mike, you would need to close the gate here." Hopper says and gets up soon after, looking nervous, running a hand through his hair.

"Guys, calm down... Hopper, you said yourself that Joyce turned off the Russians' machine, I can find a way to make the machine in the lab close the gate." I try to reassure him a little and I realize that Kali seems in denial with what I'm saying, for a change.

"Mike, you and Owens believe that whoever controls the portal is the other side, not us. Using the machine may not be enough." Kali answers me and I'm about to hit when she decides to finish talking. "Hopper, you and I won't be enough for this..."

Hopper looks at me like he's trying to say "I'm sorry" and it scares me a little. I don't know what he and Kali talked about before, I don't know exactly how this thing would spread to Hawkins, but if the problem is closing the portal, Liv and I can fix it.

_I have to._

"Mike," Kali calls me again and I look directly at her this time. "El needs to close the gate."


	33. Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopper 🤝 Mike

**Chicago, Illinois. May 23, 1997**

I'm still trying to understand - and believe - what El told me. And showed.

I keep thinking about her whole childhood story, about being trapped in a laboratory since she was born, not knowing her mother, how terrible her biological father was and what he did to her for twelve years: tests, torture, threats...until she was able to do with her mind what no human being could.

It's raining again in Chicago and the sound of the drops hitting the window of our small apartment is annoying. El is sleeping on the tiny couch in the living room while I try to absorb everything. I have looked in all my books for something that could explain telekinesis and I haven't found it. Two hours ago I believed this was impossible. Now, I know that my girlfriend can do it with almost no effort.

We didn't talk much after she told me, I respected her moment just as she respected mine. I needed to digest everything I saw and heard and she needed to rest after remembering everything she lived.

We've been together for two years and I never imagined it. Never. And it makes me think that today she gave me the best thing I could receive: her absolute confidence. Only me and Hopper know that. And he gave the nod to let me know.

I look again at the pile of books on the small table and sigh loudly. I will not find an explanation for this here. Maybe I should take advantage of that Dustin went out to enjoy Saturday night and I will have the apartment to myself.

I go to the couch thinking about carrying El to my bed because I know that sleeping on this tiny couch is super uncomfortable, but she wasn't sleeping, just watching something on TV.

"Hi, Jean Gray!" I refer to my favorite character in the comics and that always reminds me of El... only now have I realized the connection between them. "I thought you were sleeping... Do you want to go to your room? This sofa is not comfortable."

"Are you already going to sleep?" I nod and El gets up, sitting on the couch. She holds my hand in hers and watches our fingers intertwined... I wonder if there is any regret for having told me her story. "Thank you for listening to me. For not asking me to do that again, for not finding me a weirdo..."

Her voice is low and timid, I can barely hear it. I think that during those two years together, she must have wondered what my reaction would be to learning about her.

I pull the short strands of hair off her face a little and hold her chin gently so she looks at me. There is a lot of insecurity in her eyes and I give her a chaste kiss on the lips, looking back into her eyes soon after. I want her to know that I'm being honest.

"I don't think you're weird, quite the contrary. I always want to hear from you, I want you to trust me." El doesn't answer immediately, she preferred to look me in the eyes for a few seconds before resting her forehead on mine.

"Remember when you had lunch at home when you went to meet my father?" I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was so nervous, I thought Hopper would hate me at first or use his police authority against me. None of this happened. "When you left, my dad and I talked... he wanted to know how I felt about you if I felt it was worth it. Months later, on that Father's Day that you stayed with us, he came to talk to me again. He told me he trusts you who admires you a lot. That day I knew that I wanted you in our life, completely... I was just afraid that you would think something bad about me..."

"It is possible? Thinking something bad about you... seems impossible to me." She strangely looks at me, as if trying to understand me, so I kiss her lips again before speaking. "You are amazing, I think that since Max introduced us at college. I think you're even more incredible now... and tomorrow my admiration for you will grow. It's been like this every day since I met you."

El still has an odd, distant look... I wonder how cruel her life was in that place, how much it must affect her today. She adjusts my glasses and runs her fingers over my face and I can smell the hydrant she uses in her hands.

"Sometimes I feel so... abnormal." I even try to refute her speech, but she asks me for silence with her eyes. "I hate it, Mike. They are not superpowers, it’s not good to have that, it’s sick. I'm disgusted by it... all I wanted is to not have to hide, not to hide my name... I wanted to be Jane Hopper from the start, I didn't want Jane Ives or Eleven to exist. I don't want to be his monster, but that's what I am and I don't know what to do sometimes..."

"Hey, look at me!" I hold her face in my hands to make her look at me, but she is crying so much that I don't know if I will be able to dry her face or comfort her. "You are not a monster and do not belong to him or anyone. What you have is special, it's yours and only you can decide to use it or not. He no longer exists. You have a father who loves you very much as you are. And I love you too, I love you even more now because I know your story and you still are the sweetest person I have ever met. I love you with or without your gift, Ives or Hopper, big or short hair, complaining about Star Wars or not... this love won't change."

"I'm afraid of hurting you someday... of not being able to control anything in me." she's shaking a little and I don't know if it's fear or cold. "Every time I use this I feel him around, like I'm in that place again, like he's controlling me, forcing me to do things I don't want to... I'm not like your Jean Gray or Diana Prince."

"Of course not, you are much better than them." she smiles a little when I say that, a shy smile between the tears that still slide down her face and I hurry to wipe them all away. "Thank you for trusting me with your secret, El." 

"Thank you for existing." She hugs me so tight that I lose a little balance, but I recover quickly and return her hug. "Every time you are close to me I feel normal... I feel that I can be happy, despite everything. I feel safe."

"You're safe, I promise." I tighten our embrace once more. "Thanks for existing." 

**\------**

**Hawkins, Indiana. December 21, 2008**

I'm in Hell. I spent the last five minutes going down in a bad lab elevator, wearing this heavy outfit, listening to Owens mumble something about me "disappearing", Liv ignoring him and looking closely at everything around us. I am in hell because I'm underneath the lab here it is very _cold_. An inverted version of the popular idea of what hell would be.

I am in the expansion of the upside-down world, after all. It is just fair that things here work contrary to the common sense of my world.

As soon as we landed, I could see that the area is being swept by the military. Motion sensors, cameras, something that looks like a bomb... it all makes me wonder how fucked up we are.

"How long have you been like this?" I ask no one in particular, but Owens answers.

"Less than a week... some people were complaining about the bad smell in the forest around the lab." I look at Liv immediately in an attempt at silent dialogue. "A radius of 1 mile... looks the same as that place after the portal. Same temperature, elements... watch out for the floor!"

"What?! Oh shit!" I could only feel that there was something like a snake curling around my foot thanks to Owens' warning. I thought about using the knife to get the thing out of there, but one of the soldiers manages to release it. "What is it?"

"A kind of vine... a snake. Snake vine? I don't know." - Owens answers me, but I'm still confused. "Sometimes I think things mix here, we don't know yet."

"Like this place is a prism? Dividing and reflecting the DNA of things." Liv theorizes while the soldier burns the vine... or snake. "Honestly, I don't doubt anything else, so the idea is not that absurd."

"Why did you burn this thing?" I ask the boy who is with us. "Wouldn't it be more like shooting yourself or something?"

"The fire has been more efficient, Mr. Wheeler. It is what has helped us to stop this expansion... we are making fires every other day." the soldier answers me while motioning for us to accompany him.

It takes us to a kind of tunnel, where other soldiers are also burning the walls, roof and floor. Even so, the temperature doesn't rise a bit.  
I remember my watch and check my wrist to see how the accessory behaves. It is still 10:30 am, so I imagine that there was no expansion in time, which is less bad.

"Is it possible to access the other side through these tunnels?" Liv asks Owens while writing something in the notebook she brought. "If what lives on the other side is expanding its world under the earth, there must be some way to access the surface, don't you think?"

"I agree," I answer. "Have you checked that out?"

"Well, Wheeler, not yet." Owens says in a tone of irony. "We didn't have much time, we focused on stopping this expansion... we are without many alternatives."

"It seems obvious to me that we need to close the gate up there." all of a sudden, all the other fellow researchers and the military are staring at me, as if it were too bold an idea. "It started after we opened it. Want to prevent shit from happening while searching? So act responsibly."

"And we are not responsible, Wheeler?" Rogger appears suddenly. Great, one more to get in the way. "I believe we are handling the situation well."

We were in uncomfortable silence, nobody thinks of hitting the boss or his speech is so absurd that half the team went into shock. I understand the silence of low-ranking soldiers, but not of other fellow scientists, especially Owens... but I never know which side he really is on.

"I think you're wrong." I answer Rogger because, honestly, what could he do against me? Shoot me? Too extreme for your persona. Fire me? I've tried it and did not work. "What will you do when burning is not enough anymore?"

He does not fight me, not because he is thinking of an answer that makes me feel, but because he does not know what to do. He's a military man, not a scientist. The only thing you can do is speak loudly and shoot anything that moves.

It's a wonderful feeling to see him without action ... so the only option left is too predictable.

"Burn everything you find." Rogger speaks loudly as he leaves the place and the soldiers prepare to obey his order.

"Keep doing this and you'll get out of here pretty quickly, Wheeler." Owens speaks to me very quietly before returning to the place he reserved for studies.

I still need to analyze everything he studied in the last week, but I have a very bad feeling about this expansion. At least, if the fires work, I can use it as an excuse to blow this place up. Or implode.

I just need to figure out how to do it.

For the first time in weeks, the snow gave us a break. It only snowed half of what was expected today, which allowed many people to leave home to buy things for Christmas. I haven't bought anything yet, but I know that my best gift this year will be celebrating the date with El and our friends after three long and painful years.

I also find it bittersweet to have Hopper around, even if it's not my father-in-law. Sometimes, when I talk to him, I feel like I'm years and years ago, when my life was less complicated and my family was El, Hop and Nancy.

Maybe that's why I drove from Hawkins to Chicago, straight to his house. Sometimes I think I am clinging to this Hopper - who is now having dinner with me, a food that he made himself.

"Thanks for inviting me." he looks at me with a neutral expression, which would mean "okay, son" in my father-in-law's dictionary. "The food you made is identical to the food my father-in-law made... Your El must like it very much... My El liked it, at least."

"She doesn't like it very much." he smiles weakly when remembering his daughter. "In fact, I improved a lot after a few months with her. Because of work, I ended up resorting to frozen food. And she hates peas."

"I know!" this time, I'm the one who laughs at the memories. "My El also hates peas and loves waffles. There's a bakery close to our house that serves waffles with whipped cream, chocolate and a lot of other stuff. Almost a mountain of food... She loves it. I think it's exaggerated."

"We have a version of these waffles, the triple-decker-eggo-extravaganza. I always do it when we celebrate something or when she is upset. There are three stacked Eggos, chocolate, whipped cream, m&m’s..." he stops talking for a few seconds and looks at nothing, he probably misses his daughter... I can't help but be sad about it. El is 14 years old in his reality, he's only been away from that place for just over two years... and we don't know how she is now.

Hopper takes a deep breath before taking the dishes off the table and lights a cigarette right afterward and I realize one more thing in common that he has with my father-in-law. I hope he also stops smoking soon.  
"I thought you were going to dinner with your El today, Mike." he asks me right after smoking the cigarette. "How is she?"

"She's fine... will take a while to get home because of a Christmas party at her work. She has invited me, but I'm not in the mood for parties after returning from Hawkins, so... She doesn't get upset, it's okay."

"Ah, good... what's it in your hand?" he points to my cell phone.

"A mobile phone. I gave you one, but you didn't use it, did you?" I say and only now I realize that it is obvious that he would not use the cell phone I gave him... he does not know what it is. "Well, it's like a phone, but you can take it to other places and still talk to people..."

"Hmm... may be useful. Things are quite different now. I feel like an alien." he seems shy while talking, he doesn't look directly at me, preferring to watch his cigarette burn... "So, I saw the photos you gave me. You and El have two bracelets, each. What does it mean?"

I felt uncomfortable with the idea of talking about things like this with Hopper, but I've improved a little since I brought him here. I think that he may be desperate to understand where and with whom he is, so it might not be so bad to talk to him.

"Hopper, my father-in-law, had given El a blue bracelet when she was a child. He also had one." in an involuntary movement, I end up picking up my bracelet and playing with it, trying to find the best way to explain why there are four of these." When El and I started living together, Hopper gave us two more, one for each of us... the fourth bracelet is for... a son or daughter."

"You don't have children, do you?" I move my head with a "no" signal. I haven't thought about it in a while, but it's still hard to remember why El and I aren't parents. "I saw three children in the photos and you always look happy with them... but I figured they weren't yours. The girls are a beautiful mix between Max and Lucas, the boy doesn't look like someone I know, but he is always with Will and another man..."

"They are our friends' kids. El and I cannot have children." Hopper seems a little surprised to hear this, as if looking for an explanation and I take a deep breath before clarifying the matter. "We cannot have a child naturally. Brenner... he thought that puberty, hormonal changes and pregnancy could her body the body too much and, consequently, her "powers"... so he determined that El should be operated on as a child. She has no uterus, no ovaries..."

Hopper is visibly disturbed by what I just said. I was too when I discovered it, but I try to escape the bad feelings it causes me. It wouldn't help at all. Brenner is dead and what he did is irreversible.

I watch as Hopper absorbs everything, still upset. He spends time closing his fist, as if trying to suppress his anger. I know, I've been there too.

"How does she deal with it?" He asks quietly after a while and lights another cigarette.

"I think she liked to believe that it wouldn't affect her that much... At first, it didn't affect us. Then Max got pregnant, her belly got huge, the girls were born... I realized that I wanted children when I carried them, but I didn't tell El. A few months later she told me that she wanted to be a mother, that she understood what the surgery they did on her meant. She was very sad at the time, we both were, but we thought better about being parents and decided to adopt a child... we even looked for the paperwork and started talking to a social worker, but then Hopper died... everything was horrible after that."

"I'm sorry." he tells me and sits on the chair next to me, patting me on the back. My Hopper always had an angry and insensitive face, but deep down he was a caring man. Perhaps this is Hopper is more like him than I imagine. "My El didn't go through that. I took her to another city and we visited a doctor."

"I'm glad." I say and he gives me a shy smile. I realize now that I missed this, having someone to talk to, someone to trust... I miss a father figure, actually. "Hop, when I say I don't want to involve El in all this mess, it's not because I'm an asshole or something... El has been through a lot and-"

"I know, boy. I understand I don't want her to get involved either. But if there is no way to close that portal, you may need to involve her. For your safety."

"I need to find a way to close it, Hop. I don't think El is incapable, that's not the problem... She is capable of anything she wants, she is the most incredible person I know. All she wants is to have a normal life and I promised that she would have it. It is not fair to take her there, I am afraid of losing her. I almost lost her once, I don't want to risk her life."

"I understand you. The last time I saw my daughter, she wanted to fight the Russians." I try to imagine El, at 14, wanting to beat the Russians' ass. Hopper smiles a little at the memory, but I find it strange. "My El fought an army of agents who were after her, she is like a "superhero"... it worries me a lot, she is a child, a little girl."

Maybe his El is more used to these physical confrontations than my El. It is sad to think about it. Sad to think about what she had to face to survive.

I end up remembering when Lucas, Kali and I went to the lab to rescue Hopper and Kali told us when El broke the neck of a guy who tried to hurt her. I never thought about this guy's intentions, but I feel disgusted remembering it.

All of which makes me more sure that I need to get Hopper back. I don't know what the price is, but I do.

"Your daughter needs you... and I know she has been looking for you. I'm not sure about that, but I think that every time she tries to find you, she ends up transmitting everything to my El, like a dream. She spent months dreaming of you in a dark, cold, abandoned forest. Once, El “dreamed” of his El asking for help to find you."

"Like an interference?" Hopper asks me surprised and I confirm. "I need to get back to her, Mike."

"I know, I'll help you. I'll take you back after Christmas, I just need to find a way to take you to her... You can't leave a child alone."

I don't even know why I ended up saying that and he must have thought it was strange because he spends time watching me.

I get up and get ready to go home with my head full. I need to think of a plan, again. I need to find a way to do what's right and get out alive.  
I say goodbye to Hopper, but he doesn't say goodbye to me so quickly, he just calls me when I'm about to leave the house.

"Mike, you're going to be a great father. One day." he tells me and the feeling is bittersweet as if the chance of being a father was so close and so distant at the same time. "El will also be a great mother."

"If I'm a little like you, I'll be happy." he smiles at me, a wide smile. The first since we met.

"Let's find a way to solve this." Hopper says before putting out his cigarette in the old ashtray he found here. "And we're going to destroy that lab. Together."

This idea is the most interesting I have heard today.


	34. Christmas Bliss

The past two days seemed like a blur to me. Even though I was not working because of the Christmas break (despite the urgent situation in the lab), I had to focus on other things, like taking Hopper to the upside-down, making sure he gets back to his time and, consequently, his daughter, closing the gate at Hawkins, finding a way to destroy everything in the lab... and get out alive.

And free. It won't do much good if I do all this and end up in prison.  
So, in the last two days, I have been studying more about parallel reality than when I was in college. The best part is that El decided to help me.

I told her about the upside-down "spreading" under Hawkins, the need to close the gate and, mainly, how to do it using that machine. I don't know if from boredom or curiosity, but El has investigated all possibilities with me.

I've also been talking to Liv over the phone, trying to cover the conversation in case anyone is listening. She's trying to find a way to get the machine to close that thing. We stayed up late thinking until she asked for a break. Minutes later, I ended up sleeping on the desk in my office and El had to wake me up and take me to our room.

What I see when I wake up is the curtain on the bedroom window, then the clock on the nightstand reading 7:57 am. It's December 23rd, my birthday. I think that's why there is a note near the lamp and a good smell of food coming up to the room.

I take the note, which is folded and has my name next to a heart drawn with a red pen. I smile when I see it and remember that El made sure not to sleep before midnight just to be the first person to wish me a happy birthday.

Sometimes I think that we are too sweet around each other. I remember I made a cake, candy, letters and a surprise party for her birthday months ago... but it is good to be able to celebrate those dates with her after years.

"Oh come on!" I was about to open the note when I hear El's indignant voice in the room. "You shouldn't be awake, Mike! I thought I would sleep until 9 am, at least."

"I don't like to wake up late. Come on here." I pat the bed and she comes over to me, laying her head on my chest. "A secret admirer wrote me a love letter, what do you think?"

"Hmm. About this note, it's not mine." at first, I thought she was playing with me, but her expression is too serious. "It's your mother's. She called me a few days ago, asked me to transcribe her message to you because... you know, she doesn't have much strength in her hands."

I'm not sure what to think about this. I know that because of the years drinking too much, my mom has now a hard time doing small things like writing. Her hands are shaking a lot.

But that note is the first contact with my family in a long time. My parents did not like my divorce with Liv. I expected my father to be an asshole and leave me, but not my mother... I thought she would understand me, that she would support my decision to return to Chicago.

"She could have called me..." ok, maybe I shouldn't act like that with my mom, but I can't help but be upset about it. "I just... anyway, thanks for the note."

"You can call her later if you want. You don't have to read it now, do it in your time, okay?" El kisses my face and tries to get out of bed, but I hold her arm and try to convince her to stay. "I need to finish your gift then, please, stay quiet here? I want to enjoy the day with you before we go to Dustin's." 

"But aren't _you_ my gift?" I thought I couldn't convince her, but El goes back to bed with me and I take the opportunity to be hugged with her, feeling her back on my chest. "Thanks for the birthday surprises, El. Really."

"You deserve it." She turns around, facing me, so close that her nose touches mine. "Mike, I've been thinking about Hawkins... What if you and Liv modify the machine to the point where it explodes. Perhaps the explosion will close the gate..."

"It would destroy the building too. It is a huge machine." El is much calmer and pacifist than me, but I see a sign of hope when I talk about destroying the building. "It would be nice, don't you think? It's pretty empty there, so-"

"No." she cuts me off. "Don't... talk to Owens and try to get out of it. You can't do everything, Mike. I'm afraid something bad will happen to you..."  
I understand what she says, but sometimes I feel that something bad is bound to happen anyway... I just don't want it to happen to her.

"Don't think about it, okay?" I say to lighten the mood and because I also need to be distracted. "Are we going to stay here in bed all day? I like to be with you."

"Me too." El gets closer to me, hiding her face in my chest. "I always feel safe with you. Happy 37, Mike."

"Thank you." I say before I hold her closer to me.

The idea of blowing up the machine is not a bad one, but it does not guarantee that the gate will be closed. Maybe only El can guarantee it, maybe not even her.

In the end, this is not a topic I should be concerned about. My mother's note is still in the place where I left it, on the nightstand. Perhaps that should be the only concern today.

**\---------**

I had the best birthday party in years, I'm sure of it. El brought me over to Dustin's house, which was a bit overpriced for me. Cake, sweets, snacks, juices for children and beer for adults. A lot of people I love around and wishing me a happy birthday, a phone call from my sister, hugs and kisses from my fiancee. It was better than I could have imagined.

The party ended a few minutes ago and I'm still the only person awake at home. Max ended up sleeping with Will and Brad on the couch, El and Dustin decided to teach the kids how to play Monopoly and they ended up losing and now they have a debt of 1 million ice cream balls to pay. Putting everyone in bed ended up being a job for me and Lucas, who went to sleep with his wife and daughters soon after.

My mom's note is still in my wallet and I may not be able to sleep because of it, or because I miss someone's congratulations. I thought about calling Hopper, but I couldn't stay a single minute alone. _Maybe it's better this way_ , I think. He'll be back in his world soon, I can't try to fill my father-in-law's absence with the other Hopper.

I take a shower after spending too much time looking up at the ceiling and listening to El's calm breathing next to me, but not even El's presence could help me quiet my thoughts.

I try to open the backpack carefully so I don't wake her up while I grab a pajama, but I end up finding a folder that I brought with a summary of Owens' analysis and, I don't know if I was negligent before, but I didn't realize that there was an attachment in the document. A stack of paper I haven't read yet.

The dim street light coming through the bedroom window doesn't help me much and I don't want to turn on the lamp and wake El up, so I grab something to wear and go down to the living room, taking the folder with me.

I don't wait too much to start reading Owens' document and I see hundreds of calculations, some references to older studies on physics... there is also a quotation from my doctoral thesis. Good to know that Owens is a great admirer of my work.

I start to get irritated over not finding anything very interesting in the document until I feel the impact of something - a hand - on my neck. It's Lucas.

"Are you stupid or what?" I complain to him for scaring me. "I thought it was El."

"Does she treat you like that at home?" He laughs as he walks to the kitchen and comes back with a glass of water. "My little girl woke me up just to get her some water. And you, what are you doing here? Did El put you out of bed?"

"No, she's in a coma after eating too much cake." I show him Owens' papers and that may have got his attention since he decides to sit next to me on the couch. "I was reading this crap that Owens wrote... nothing new, apparently."

"What the fuck... it's Christmas, Mike. Go to sleep."

"I can't... my mom sent a note and I still couldn't read... There's the whole Hopper thing too, the shit in the lab. I need to resolve this after Christmas."

"Solve that... what, exactly?" he asks me apprehensively and I already know that my idea will not be well received. "What are you thinking of doing?"

"The other Hopper needs to go back to his time, to his daughter... everyone thinks he is dead and El from the past may be alone. She's 14, man." I had already talked to Lucas about everything Hopper told me, so I don't need to go into too much detail, which is good. I'm a little apprehensive that someone might overhear our conversation. "I think the gate of his time, world, whatever, is still open, or there is a gap. This explains my theory that El from the past is contacting our El from the present while looking for her father."

Lucas looks at me for a while, a little astonished. I do not judge, the whole subject is confusing even for me. He ends up drinking the water he got for his daughter and, as I know he won't say anything, for now, I decide to continue explaining:

"The point is that this upside-down world is spreading over Hawkins, so we need to close the gate here and there if there's one open... The other El did it once. The gate here was opened by a machine and the other side has more control than us, Kali and Hopper think that maybe blowing up everything is not enough... So, what I need to do is help Hopper get back to his daughter, close the gate here, and, if possible, blow up the lab."

"I'd love to blow up the lab with those monsters inside." I think it's kind of odd for Lucas to say that, but I let it go. I'm not going to be a hypocrite and say I didn't think about it either. "But what if the machine is not enough, what could be?"

"They want El to close the gate with her Jedi force." Lucas reacts with an ironic laugh. At least someone who agrees with me. "I can't involve her."

"I agree. Sometimes I think it would be good to tell her about Hopper, sometimes I don't think so... But I'm not indecisive about asking El to use her powers to close that thing. I am against it. Don't let Kali talk to El about this."

I watch Lucas get up and go to the kitchen, returning soon after with the glass full of water again.

"Mike, it will be very difficult to do all this, but I can help you," he tells me still standing. "I think all of this is too risky and I don't want anything to go wrong. Tell me the day and I'm going with you."

"No... No, Lucas. Sometimes I have a bad feeling about all of this, I’m not even going there with Hopper, I’m just going to make sure he has the equipment he needs… I can’t let you go. You have a family, they need you. I can't risk losing you."

"And El isn't your family too? You are not alone in the world, Mike." His voice is harder this time.

"She's all I have too, so I'm not taking any chances. But I started this and I need to finish it."

I think Lucas gives up on arguing with me because he just takes a deep breath and goes upstairs, probably going to answer his daughter's request and go to sleep. I prefer it that way, anyway. We're going to celebrate Christmas tomorrow and I don't want to be in a bad mood with anyone.

I won't get anything from Owens' paperwork, so I decide to go to the bedroom. I doubt I'll be able to sleep, but at least I won't be alone and thinking nonsense."

I end up dropping the papers when I take them back with me and God only knows how much my back is hurting after a whole day with three kids running around the house and full of sugar in their system.

I bend down to collect the pile of scattered paper when I find a piece of paper full of scribbles... a note. I take it carefully and recognize Owens' handwriting.

All that is written is a “Call - 008. Maybe the sister will help.” and as soon as I read it, I realize that I have never been so angry with anyone in my life.

**\---------**

7:37 pm. It's Christmas Eve and I've spent the whole day cooking with Dustin to try to distract myself as much as possible, but I came close to having an anxiety attack. Fortunately, I managed to get away and do some breathing exercises in the bathroom until I would feel safe enough to go back. I can't lose control today.

But I think I'm getting worse.

Kali will spend Christmas with us thanks to Will who invited her. He's too good, always willing to forgive and keep family ties, just like El. I don't think I'll ever have those qualities.

My mom's note is still in my wallet and I had planned to read it earlier today, but I'm not in a good time to get close to notes.

I feel El climbing on the bed where I'm sitting and pretending to be messing with some bullshit on my cell phone.

"Hi!" El says as she puts her arms around my body and rests her chin on my shoulder. The perfume she is wearing today is what I gave her for her birthday. "You're too quiet today... you all right?"

"Yes and no." I prefer to bet on a half-truth now, I don't want to ruin her night. "I was anxious all day, I didn't read my mother's message, I couldn't sleep. I just... I don't even know anymore, El."

She pulls away a little so she can sit next to me and held my left hand, playing with my ring... We stayed like this for a few seconds until she looks me in the eyes, fixing my hair.

"I've been feeling that way in the last few days. And I realized that you get lost somewhere in your mind, you look away... Sometimes I think of asking you what you're thinking, but you won't tell me."

"Yesterday I slept for about ten minutes and I think I dreamed of something that I don't remember well, it was like a bad feeling. The only thing I knew was that I was alone and I knew I would never see you again..." I hadn't realized that I was holding her hand more tightly than before. "I just want all this to be over soon."

"Me too." now she is the one who has a distant look and I don't know what to say. "Sometimes life sucks. At least I have you, so..."

"And that helps?"

"Yes!" it's kind of impossible not to smile with her when I heard this. "You don't have to worry or be afraid of losing me. I don't think about leaving you. When you came to take care of me in 2006 after that... before I found out you were coming back home, I had already decided that I would go to New York to see you. I wanted to apologize to you for everything and make it up to you. I didn't think to go there and ask you to separate from Liv and run away with me somewhere, but I wanted to at least have you as a friend. I always feel good when you're close to me and I missed everything, your voice, your smell... even your wet towel on the bed I missed."

"When I came back, I thought you wouldn't pay attention to me." She looks at me with a kind of indignant expression and I start to laugh. - "Seriously... I thought we'd just be friends again. But I wouldn't say no to you if you took me back... I didn't."

"I'm glad I didn't say no!" El holds my face before giving me a slow and so gentle kiss that seems to dissolve everything bad in my mind. "Let's go down? Our friends are waiting, you cooked a lot today... and I'm hungry, come on!"

I don't have much time to answer because El pulls me by the hand and we go down to the living room together, where we meet everyone ... including Kali. At least I'm fifty percent more at ease.

"Look, if you were doing _that_ here at my house..." Dustin starts and I swore that El would scold him or something, but:

"It was exactly what we were doing, Dustin! How did you guess?" El pretends surprise and he pretends indignation. "Next time I'll invite you."

"But what is _that_?" Peter asks, innocently, and I run to change the subject with the little one.

"Nothing, cowboy!" I carry and tickle his belly to distract him and I see Brad complain to Dustin from bringing this matter.

I see that El went to greet Kali and I sigh relieved to have at least a few minutes before I need to interact with her. We haven't talked since that day at Hopper's and that Owens note made me paranoid. I don't know if I understood correctly what is written on that paper and, if I did, I don't know if he called Kali. Maybe he did since she is so determined with the idea of El closing that fucking gate.

I try to distract myself with the kids for a long time and just greet Kali with a quick nod and a fake smile. It was reciprocal, at least, and El didn't seem to notice.

**\---------**

00:00 AM, Christmas night.

Lucas suggests a toast and we all get up at the table. I don't believe in God, or the idea of his existence, but I grew up in a good traditional and Christian family, just like Lucas. But I still think the party or the concept of it is beautiful, at least.

Kali is facing me and I avoid looking at her directly so I don't get more uncomfortable. I spent much of the dinner helping Peter, Karen, and Anna to cut what they needed and insisting that they eat more salad.

Lucas thanks and toasts our friendship, our companionship, the first Christmas we have been together in years, but he remembers Hopper's absence and mentions him. El just gives a sad, but resigned, smile. I know that deep down she still misses her father a lot, but it is noticeable how much better she is dealing with everything now compared to years ago.

However, I don't think that moves Kali too much, who decides to say something to me, indirectly, right after:

"I would like to toast and wish that we all be honest with each other, that we can appreciate the trust we give each other, the second chances... Trust is the best thing that someone can give us and-"

"Cheers!" Max cuts it and we toast one more time. She looks directly at me when she speaks again. "I'm grateful for you, for having each other. I trust each of you, with all my heart. And we protect each other, as it should be."

I know I should be quiet and let this moment pass. El, Will, Brad, Dustin, Peter, Anna, Karen ... they will all talk about what they feel, for what they are grateful ... They don't know anything, after all. They have the privilege of not knowing. And that's how it should be.

"I'm grateful for being here again after a few years." I say and I feel El's hand holding mine as I speak. "I had the best birthday and best Christmas in years. I am happy and grateful to be with _you_ again." hug El from the side, getting closer to her while I desperately seek some tranquility. "El, thanks for taking me back, for trusting me. You are the most important person in my life and I know that we are both happy together. I promise I will do everything for us. Love you."

I don't know that Kali reaction is because I feel El's lips on mine as soon as I finish my speech and our friends start to make kissing sounds, as they always did.

We toast together and I still avoid Kali, but I feel her gaze on me.

I know that, deep down, Kali and I want the same thing: to protect El and have some redemption for our mistakes a few years ago. Me, for leaving when I shouldn't have; her, for offering something that she knew would not help El at all.

Today I see that our mistakes, together, almost cost the life of the person we love the most.

But I didn't come back to make mistakes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think :)


	35. Two Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This is one of my favorite chapters. Let me know what you think! :)

I hear the beep of my watch at 2:00 am and the only sound around is my fucking car. I'm taking Kali over to her house.

Luckily, we didn't have another uncomfortable moment after the toast, but she announced shortly afterward that she couldn't sleep at Dustin's, that she needed to go back. I offered to drive her home because it is too late, she would hardly be able to get a cab. And even if she did, it wouldn't be safe to go back alone with a strange guy driving the car.

I have disagreements with Kali and I know that she knows how to defend herself, but I'm not an idiot. Also, I know we need to talk and this is a good opportunity.

"Why did you say that when we toasted?" I ask quietly to escape an unnecessary fight. "I agree with you, trust is the best thing anyone can give us, but I'd rather risk losing El's trust than letting her go through a lot of shit-"

"You underestimate her too much." Kali cuts me off, but I'm more irritated by her comment than the interruption. "Do you think Jane is not able to handle all this? Her powers are stronger than mine. I don't understand this excessive concern you have. Is it guilt?"

"I don't underestimate anyone, least of all El. And she has all this power, but she doesn't like it, she doesn't feel good about it. The fact that you think this is cool and use it whenever it suits you does not mean that she should be like you." 

"Is it guilt, Mike?" she looks at me this time and I regret looking back because it's not Kali I see, but El.

"Stop it, Kali." I know her skill, but I never saw it. I also think it is a low blow from her.

"Why you left? You got married... you work with his ex-wife in that place, you hide Hopper-"

"Shut up! You don't even know what happened!" she stops using her power against me as soon as I finish speaking... or screaming. I've already lost the rest of my control.

I'm so nervous now that I don't even know how to drive anymore is a good idea. I then resolve to just speed up a little more to get to her house faster.

"You underestimate her too much-"

"Ah, fuck off! Are you going to continue with this?!"

"She knows something, Mike! She knows that you and Max are hiding something because she told me yesterday morning and you should thank me very much for keeping my mouth shut."

_Damn_

I don't know what to say after that. It may be Kali's bluff ... it may not be. El met Max at the hospital when Hopper was still there. But she hasn't shown any distrust or was upset since that day... or I haven't been paying attention. I choose not to believe Kali because it is more comfortable for me.

"Okay. And would she say that to you?" I use a sarcastic smile just to provoke her. "Like... you?"

"El and I share a lot of things. Perhaps more than you and your sister. Don't underestimate people, Mike."

"Okay" I say and choose not to continue this conversation since I am very close to her house.

I park in front of the building she lives in and notice that the street is very empty, probably everyone is celebrating Christmas with the family since some apartments still have the lights that decorate the windows. I unlock the door so Kali can get out, but she doesn't stay still. She invites me to get in:

"Let's go in. We can have tea and talk. There's someone at home who would like to see you."

"No, thanks. I need to go back to Dustin's. Bye and Merry Christmas-"

"It's not an invitation. Come on, Owens is in my apartment." I am paralyzed for a while. _Owens at her Kali's apartment?_ "Is important."

She turned off my car and took out the key just to force me to go with her. And if Owens is really there, I better know what he has to say. If I don't go, I'll spend the whole night dealing with my mind.

The building she lives in is much quieter than I imagined. The whole environment seems to be too lonely, even for me. The only thing I can hear is the Christmas song that plays in the elevator.

The structure reminds me of old buildings, large apartments which look more like studios... It is not the first time I have been here, but it is the first time that I care to observe the place. Better to think about the corridor wallpapers than to make room for other things to fuck up my brain.

I don't see Owens as soon as I get in with Kali, so I have to wait a few minutes until he shows up, leaving a room, holding some papers and looking furious. He also has a bruise on his eyebrow and another on his lip and I am apprehensive. I don't know who could have done this to him. Owens is about 63 years old and I worry that he may have gotten into a fight with someone.

I barely have time to start asking what happened when I feel Owens push me harder than I thought he would have, making me fall backward, hitting my back on a coffee table.

"You fucking idiot! Idiot, do you want to fuck everything up?" Owens yells at me as I try to get up.

"Owens, what the fuck!" I hear Kali complain to him, much to my surprise. But the biggest surprise is listening to a song that I know very well, playing somewhere in the apartment, at a very low volume.

"This idiot will fuck with us!" Owens complains loudly to Kali while I still try to listen to the song I recognize. I don't know if I'm really listening to it or it's just my mind playing a trick again. "You fucking liar, piece of shit!"

Owens tries to push me again, but I catch him in time. I don't know what the hell happened to him to do that to me, much less call me a liar.

"Where's your Christmas spirit, Owens?" I don't know why I outlined a sarcastic smile when I said that, but I know I pissed him off a lot. "What happened to you, huh? Why are you here? It's Christmas, go see your kids instead of plotting shitty plans with Kali. "Call - 008. Maybe the sister will help."? Who's the liar here, Owens?"

This time, even Kali looks at me in surprise and that's when I realize that yes, Owens called her and that's why the idea of having El's help to close that shit is so stuck on her mind.

"You snuck in there, Michael," Owens tells me breathlessly, in a low but hard voice. He found out. "You..." he gives up talking for a few seconds and walks from side to side, squeezing that damn massage ball. "Go to the room and see it."

I don't want to go anywhere other than Dustin's or my home. I even think about getting out of here and leaving these two to resolve themselves, but I still hear that damn song.

_Last week he took all my money_

_And it may sound funny_

Kali doesn't even look at me, she hardly looks like the annoying woman who went to my friend's Christmas dinner and used her power against me in the car. Kind of the opposite, she looks much more like the Kali we met five years ago when El found her: looking sad, lonely... as if she was afraid of everything around her, but still carrying that passive-aggressive look that keeps me from trust her.

I walk towards the room they indicated and the damn music is getting louder and clearer. It doesn't seem like something in my head anymore. or maybe Kali is messing with me.

_But I come to get my money back  
And everybody say Jack don't you know_

I stop in the middle of the hall and look back at Kali. It is obvious that she wants to mess with me today, even joined the club with Owens, who is now throwing the ball against the wall while Kali lights a cigarette.

I walk down the corridor again, this time more slowly, because the song has finally reached the chorus and I recognize it. I am afraid of what I will find in the room.

_And you don't tug on superman's cape_

_You don't spit into the wind_

As soon as I open the door a little more, I see him on his back, facing a radio and smoking that unbearable cigarette. Unfortunately, I arrived at the worst moment of the song.

_You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger_

_And you don't mess around with Jim_

Hopper turns to me when he finishes repeating the words of the song and my first reaction is to go back out into the hall, looking for Kali. This time she looks at me.

"Get out of my mind, Kali. Stop it" she looks at me strangely as soon as I say it. Her nose is clean, which means she is not messing with me. I'm the one who doesn't want to accept what is happening.

The fucking music is still playing and Hopper still looks at me a little angry, a little sad... I can't tell.

It's horrible to see him smoking, listening to Jim Croce and wearing a police outfit. It's like going back to the past. My mind oscillates between seeing the Hopper that I knew, who was like a father to me, and seeing the Hopper that I met, who doesn't know me, who is the father of another El.

"Merry Christmas." he tells me irritated and goes back to smoking. I notice that he has marks on his face very similar to the ones Owens has, which leads me to believe that they fought. "How's your El?"

"What the fuck did you do?" I really want to yell at him, but I must still have some neuron working that reminds me that there must be people in the other apartments. "Why did you leave the house?"

"Ah, fuck you! Leave me alone!" he increases the volume of the damn stereo and that music from hell keeps on playing. I don't have much patience for this and the neuron that was left must have given up on me too because the next thing I do is pull the radio out and throw it against the wall, scaring Hopper, Kali, Owens and the happy family that must be in the apartment next door.

"Why did you leave the fucking house?" I reach the height of my lack of control when I yell at Hopper and grab him by the collar of his shirt, regardless of who he is. "What the fuck is your problem?!"

"No, I ask you what the fuck is your problem!" Hopper pushes me against the wall and I quickly remember that he is taller and stronger than me. He holds me against the wall, pressing his forearm against my neck, not hard enough to hurt me but enough to keep me locked up where I am. "Do you think that just because you got a nice beard you're something more than me? Do you think I will wait for your goodwill to return to my daughter? I thought you were cool, but it's just like the Mike I know, a pretentious kid!"

"Hey!" I push Hopper hard enough for him to lose his balance and fall on the bedroom bed. "I promised I would help you and I will! The only thing you needed to do is stay inside that fucking house but no! You can't even do that!"

Hopper stays quiet for a while, just looks at me strangely, as if he's recognizing someone. I wonder if I have a strange behavior in his time.

"What did you do, Hopper?" I ask after taking a few deep breaths, trying to stay calm. "Why are you hurt and dressed like this?"

"He went to the lab." Owens answers and I see that he is at the bedroom door and Kali is picking up the pieces of the broken radio. Great, now I'm going to have to pay her for it. "He hit a security guard still outside. Luckily, there aren't a lot of people there, so it was possible to delete the video. He was going to invade... I found him trying to break the chain at the main entrance."

Hopper looks embarrassed now, with his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees, still sitting on the bed. I wonder why he was calm, even though he was still confused and not sure what to do, but he was patient. We had an agreement, I thought we could trust each other, at least.

"Has anyone else seen him?" I ask Owens, but without taking my eyes off Hopper.

"Of course. He was screaming like a maniac, saying he needed to get in, and he even beat my face up. Good old Hopper... but ours is dead, isn't he, Mike? So who is this?"

 _Shit._ I didn't want Owens to find out about other reality, let alone Hopper. I didn't want anyone to know about him, especially someone from that place because they know who _Jim Hopper_ was, the chief who in 1983 invaded the lab with other policemen and killed Martin Brenner. After that day, the only surviving prisoner disappeared, being considered dead by the police shortly afterward.

Allowing anyone to remember Hopper is the same as drawing a target on El.

My only option now is to trust Owens completely. If he tries something, I still have enough evidence that he was the one who reported Brenner to the police in the 1980s and he is going to get in trouble as well.

"When we first entered there, right after one of those monsters killed Connor, I found this Hopper. Days later, Kali and I went to the lab and rescued him." I take Lucas out of the story so as not to risk him further. "He was at my father-in-law's house until today... This Hopper came from 1985. The other reality has a time difference compared to ours."

"And you didn't tell me why?" Owens asks me. "I could have helped, Mike. Keeping him in that house is a doomed plan, you know? What if El had found him? What if I hadn't been able to destroy today's footage? I can help hide El, but not like that!"

"The only thing that matters here is taking him back!" Kali speaks before I even answer Owens. "Mike doesn't want El to know about Hopper, but we need her to close that shit. You can't do the job twice, so it would be great to plan something good and fast."

"It won't happen and you," I point to Owens this time. - Stop shoving that pile of shit into her mind. “Call 008 - Maybe the sister will help”. Really, Owens? And you still say that I can trust you.

"Hey, enough!" Hopper decides to interrupt the conversation this time, getting up from the bed and hitting the nightstand to get attention. "I don't know what the shit is between the three of you, but I'll be back with or without you. I'll find a way not to damage El's identity in the meantime, but I won't wait any longer!"

"What happened to you?" I ask, calmly, because I need him to calm down too. "I'll take you to the lab and help you get back, but I need to know what happened!"

"I felt her presence this afternoon." I don't quite understand what he means and, apparently, Kali and Owens also look confused. "El is looking for me, I felt her presence. The question is... For her to get here, how did she manage? El used an isolation pool to find Will in the upside-down, so what else did she need to find me here?"

To be honest, I don't know the extent of El's or Kali's powers either... Maybe past-El managed to find her father through today-El... but this transmission should come in the form of a dream or nightmare and, as far as I know, El has not dreamed of these things in the past few days.

"I already lost a daughter." Hopper continues. I won't wait until I lose another one. I will come back, with or without you. The lab is practically empty, anyway. I just need a gun."

"You won't just need a gun." Owens says as soon as Hopper finishes talking. "The second problem is that the entire floor is isolated. Three of those dogs came out on the other side and attacked some soldiers. Liv and I ran away, so we survived... We triggered the emergency lock and the other soldiers killed the dogs. Anyway, they locked the basement and sent us home. They sent the dogs to another state because everything there is isolated, without energy, in the middle of Christmas, without military supervision..." 

"I've been through this..." Hopper says and it takes me by surprise. "Long story, better not even know. Other dogs will come if you take longer."

"Okay, Mike, we don't have time to settle this." Kali speaks to me in a much more friendly tone than I would have thought she could use. "Can we do it tomorrow? We take Hopper there and El closes the gate..."

"El won't fucking close that gate, okay? Forget it!" why do they still insist on that? "I just need two more days."

"My daughter doesn't have two days, Mike!" Hopper yells at me again and I even think about answering, but my cell phone vibrates with a message received. It's El. I need to go home.

"I just need two days and we'll fix it." I ask, again, but I do not believe that my request will be considered.

I also do not wait for their response to leave the room, because now El has decided to call me and I really need to go home.

I'm about to leave and answer El's call when I hear Hopper calling me again:

"I will go back there with or without you."

**\------**

It is almost 3 am when I return to Dustin's house and, not to my surprise, I hear El's voice as soon as I enter. I tried hard not to make noise and end up waking up the kids and El still doesn't know that I arrived. I'm not sure if I should remain silent and try to go up to the room or announce my arrival and interrupt her conversation.

In the meantime, I get a message from Kali just saying to meet her tomorrow at the coffee shop down the road, the same one where I found her when we were planning Hopper's rescue. _Fuking hell_ , I think. Sometimes I don't think I even have a break to breathe and put things in place.

I hear El say my name while talking to someone and it ends up getting my attention. I think I'll just talk to her quickly before going up, but what she says next stops me for a bit.

"I don't know what Mike's doing, Nancy. He's hiding something from me, I know that..." it reminds me of what Kali told me earlier when I was driving. I am also surprised to learn that she also talks about this distrust with Nancy. "No, it has nothing to do with Olivia, I don't even think about it... He and Max are hiding something from me, I know that. I feel terrible that he is lying to me."

"El." She seems very surprised to see me and tells Nancy that she would call later. I don't know how I'm feeling right now... frustrated seems to be too simple to describe. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes. Nancy called..." She knows I heard part of the conversation and it must be why she is acting weird too. "Was everything okay with Kali?"

"No." that makes El leave her cell phone on the table approach me and take my hand. Her skin is soft and warm, in contrast to mine. "Owens was there, some shit happened in the lab. He and Liv left in time."

"But... Why were they there? It's Christmas, no one should be there." She is clearly confused by this and I tighten her hand in mine.

"I don't know. They isolated the floor..."

We're silent for a while. She's trying to absorb what I just said, while I'm trying to think of what to do now that I know that she knows I'm hiding something.

 _I feel terrible that he is lying to me_ , she said.

The last thing I wanted was El to feel terrible, especially because of me. When I came back, I promised myself that I wouldn't make the same mistakes, but sometimes I think I'm doing something worse.

And only now I notice some things about her that I wouldn't have let go of awhile ago, like her hair being shorter since I last noticed it (maybe last week?), how she changed the blue dress she was wearing for dinner and now she's wearing one of my shirts, as she still has some makeup on her face, but I can't quite remember how she was during dinner... I'm losing more than her confidence and I didn't expect that.

"I'm lying to you." I barely hear my voice, but El seems to have heard it very well. "There are some things about Hawkins that I prefer to hide. I don't want you to have to deal with that place again, that you... I'm lying about how I'm feeling, about everything I need to deal with because of all this shit. Max knows, I told her, that's why she's weird. It's just a lot of problems that came up there and that accompany me... I don't want to dump all of that on you, that's why I lied."

El is silent for a while and I start to feel anxious, that bad feeling that comes up sometimes, as if I were on the edge of a cliff and I even feel looking like I am about to fall, I do not fall and I don't even come back safely. I remain in limbo.

"I love you so much, I can't let that place hurt you again." I take a lock of her hair and wrap it around my finger. I remember I used to do this all the time when we started dating. "I'm going there tomorrow and maybe I'll only be back in two days, but it'll be over when I get home. I just ask that you wait for me here, El."

"But what if they hurt you, Mike?" Her voice is so weak that it scares me. Deep down, I don't want to go anywhere, I want Owens to go to hell. I want Rogger to explode with that Lab.

"No one will hurt me if you stay here, it's only two days." I hold her face in my hands as I say this because, suddenly, her breathing has become too fast. "El, look at me."

"Do they know about me?" she is shaking as she asks me. She is close, very close, to having a panic attack. "Mike, what do they want?"

I hold her tightly, very tightly, as I did when she had these attacks right after Hopper's death. It's so horrible to go through it again.

I feel like I failed in everything I needed to do, even though I still hiding the other Hopper, she is going through this nightmare again.

"Nobody knows, El." her breathing is still fast and I hear a glass break somewhere and she hides her face in my chest while her hands cover her ears. The kitchen light is blinking too. And that is what makes me realize that we are, again, like almost five years ago.

The panic attack makes her use these powers without even wanting to, so I hold her even more tightly because I know she is trying to hide from herself, trying to make it stop, fighting her own mind and instinct. We've been like this before.

"El, breath with me." I take a deep, slow breath, as she taught me once. I repeat these exercises for some time until she can keep up with me. "I know it's bad, but breath me, El. Please."

I can even feel some relief when she stops covering her ears and hugs me back, taking her face off my chest and burying it in my neck. The kitchen light is stopping flashing.

"Everything's gonna be okay." I try to keep my voice steady for her, but I can't and I keep trying to hide from her that I'm crying too. "It's only two days, maybe less."

"Are you going to enter that place?" she asks me with such fear.

"No! I'm just going to help change the machine." that's all I'm going to do. I can't take any more risks yet, I just need to help Hopper get back. He's going to make it, he needs to make it. "Believe me, El, please. Tell me you believe me."

I know why I'm asking her to believe me, it's because I don't believe it myself. I'm scared too, very scared, but I can't let her see it in me. I need her to believe that I can do what I need to do.

"I do." she whispers to me and I tighten our hug.

"Everything's gonna be okay." I whisper to El and see that Max woke up and I don't know how long she's been here, but I know she understands what's going on. She always understands.

Max hugs us, making El stay between our bodies. It's like I'm going back in time, like I'm reliving that horrible night.

As if I was listening to El call me crying and apologizing, saying that it would all be over, that she would end everything.

As if I were opening the bathroom door and finding her body on the floor, unconscious, her face streaked with blood and vomit. As if I were seeing, again, the moment that I never imagined I would live.

I moved away and left her with Kali, who hadn't even been rid of her own addictions.

"Hey, El," Max calls her and offers her a more reassuring smile. "Let's go to sleep? Mike is going to clean up some things while you shower and we'll rest afterward, okay?"

El looks at me as if waiting for confirmation, some guarantee that what Max has just said is true and I kiss her forehead to convey something good to her.

Max says something in her ear that is good enough to make her smile a little and I watch when Max starts taking her to the bedroom, but stops for a second and looks at me. I take this opportunity to thank her for helping me.

I start picking up the broken glass from the vase that El accidentally popped and I remember that she was talking to Nancy when I arrived. I think it might be good to have her here in Chicago while I'm gone. Maybe I can share something with Nancy and use it against Owens if I need to. Maybe even against everyone involved in the project... except Liv.

Liv... from what Owens said, I almost lost her today too. I need her to get away from it as soon as possible.

I'm still picking up the broken glass when my phone rings again. Another message, this time from Kali informing the meeting time. I reply that I will only be able to go later and I say - briefly - that El is not feeling well.

When I press the button to send the message, I realize that a piece of glass cut my hand and there is already a lot of blood dripping and dirtying my phone too.

I hope it's not a bad sign.


	36. Day: 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Here we go again! 😊

There is something strange today, stranger than usual, like I'm a little anesthetized. I'm on my way to Hawkins now, Hopper is in my car while Owens and Liv are with Kali just ahead, but it's like I'm empty. I don't feel anxious, or afraid, tired... I don't feel anything.

Nor was I willing to talk as soon as I met the people at the roadside coffee shop. I think the only conversation I had was with Liv and I was questioning she's coming with us. She should have stayed at home.

Kali asked me if El was better this morning, but I just said yes, hiding from everyone what really happened. I made up a story about sugar and migraines and I don't think they believed it, but fuck it, nobody seems to care about it.

I'm trying not to think about El while I'm driving, but Hopper decided to ask what really happened and, since we're alone, I think it's okay to speak.

"I told El that I needed to go to the lab, that there were things I needed to hide from her. I said I would be back in two days, maybe before that... but she thought the agents had found out about her, then a panic attack came..."

"Panic attack?" he asks me and I say yes with my head. I hear him sigh before speaking again. "She is better?"

"No." I think about ending the conversation, but he clearly expects me to keep talking. There is a certain concern from his side, which helps to lessen my bad mood a little bit. "She had stopped taking antidepressants about three months ago, but she needed to take some medicine to sleep... it was very late, around 3:30 am, so she should only wake up almost at lunchtime, she will feel nauseous, she will vomit, she will miss appetite, feel exhausted... those things."

"You speak with great certainty." Hopper says this in a sad voice, but my accuracy surprised him. "It seems to me to have very bad effects... it is not worth taking... How do you know what she will feel?"

"She was taking those pills when you died. I mean, the other Hopper died. It sucked, but we didn't have much of a choice. The bad thing is that she won't be able to get out of a nightmare if she's doped up, for example, but it's still a dream. It's worse to not take them, believe me." he looks like he will still question the use of antidepressants, but I anticipate the answer. "I don't think they are useful either, but she knows these remedies much better than I do. She is a psychologist, so... and she's in therapy, it is not self-medication or anything like that."

This seems to help you understand better because he's silent for a few minutes. Better for me.

I know El is going to wake up feeling terrible because of the medication, but at least Max will be around.

The three of us went to the bedroom together, but that didn't help much and El decided that she would like to take the pill to "blackout". Max and I tried to convince her to try to sleep or even stay up with us until dawn, but she didn't want to. I heard El whisper very quietly to Max that she preferred to "blackout" so she wouldn't have to see me leave in the morning.

I didn't sleep, nor do I know if Max did, but El stayed with us yesterday and the only relief I have is knowing that she won't be alone when she wakes up.

"Why did you left?" Hopper speaks again and I end up letting out a loud sigh. I hate to talk about it. “The 'past-Mike' practically lived in my house when I let him date El. It was hell... so I still think it's weird that you left. You and the other Mike are very similar."

"El was depressed after Hopper... she tried to hide it from me. Sometimes she had panic attacks and hid in the bathroom, she lied about going to work... anyway, it took me a while to find out. She started to walk away from me and get closer to Kali, they had known each other for less than a year and it annoyed me a little. It was stupid of me, I know, but it was annoying. They went out a lot together and I realized that El always came back drunk. Until one night she was getting home too late at night, came back worse than the other times and we argued."

Hopper seems too thoughtful as he listens to me and I think he must think everything is strange. I understand, I never imagined that El would follow this path. I think I just left because I never thought it could get worse, so she would be "fine".

"El asked me to leave." I continue and it makes Hopper look surprised. "She said she didn't love me anymore, that it didn't make sense to be together... said she had sex with a guy from the bar."

"Was it true?" _touché_.

"No. And it was obvious that she was lying, but I don't know what happened to me... I think I believed it for a moment, so I left. I went to New York, I had some things to do there anyway. I didn't speak to El for three weeks. When I finally called her, I asked if it was true what she had told me, she said yes and I heard a man's voice too. I met Liv that day... the rest you know. I got married, it didn't work, we split up, I went back to El and Liv is my co-worker. The end."

Remembering all this makes me wonder - again - what my life would be like today if I hadn't left. Not that I don't feel happy with El right now, I just think that maybe the worst part would not have happened.

In the end, Kali is right when she says that guilt has shaped almost all of my recent attitudes.

"El handled it the same way I did." Hopper says after a few minutes. "I also bet on drinking and it ruined my marriage after I lost my daughter, Sarah. Did she exist here, in this reality?"

"Yes, she did. But you handled it differently... I think he already knew that Sarah would not survive cancer and, somehow, prepared to say goodbye."

"Yeah... I didn't prepare. I wanted to say goodbye to her. It was strange... she was with us and within seconds she was gone. Sometimes I think if I had said goodbye, I would have some conclusion. A story with an end, you know?"

"I know," I answer. "I agree with you. Hopper died in a car accident, so we didn't expect it. The endless story, just like your Sarah."

"Yes... just like Sarah."

**\------**

The Hawkins Lab is empty, dark and cold. There is an irritating noise from the alarm ringing and a few flashes of the emergency lights. This whole scenario makes me question why the army abandoned everything here without supervision. Even cameras with motion sensors are turned off.

"This doesn't look good," Hopper tells to no one in particular. "It is the basement that is isolated, isn't it?"

"Yes," Liv answers quickly. "Only Owens, me and about ten soldiers were here on Christmas Eve... some of them helped us out while others dealt with dogs. They took them to another city but did not return, apparently."

"Weird," I say. "The investment here was very high. It doesn't make much sense that they abandoned everything."

"I don't think they completely abandoned it. They must be discussing how to solve this in another way." Owens speaks as he guides us to the emergency stairs. "Perhaps they understood that the guns will not handle the problem."

It catches my attention. If they understood that the weapons and military stuff will not be able to cope, they will search for other options... I try not to suffer in anticipation, but Hopper must have thought the same as me and decided to share it with the group.

"Do they know about the kids, Owens? About Brenner..." I'm glad he got hold of it because Liv doesn't know about El's "powers", just about Kali.

"They do, but whoever interests you is registered as dead." Owens responds by trying to pass some security on to us and I realize that Liv is confused by the direction of the conversation. I need to remember to create some explanation for her.

Going down five floors, heading to the most critical place was not so easy. We are carrying some backpacks with weapons and ammunition (Kali got the material and, honestly, I will not question). We still need to stop at the guard room so Hopper can get a safety suit.

Owens, Kali, and Liv choose to go to the control room while Hopper and I go to the protection suits room. I will get the weapons ready while he gets dressed up.

The place is not so far from where the guys are, it is just at the end of the corridor, so we don't need to walk so much, but we are all still at a slow pace. Those dogs are attracted to noises and the smell of blood and we don't know how strong the last floor protection' is.

"It's very quiet." Hopper whispers as we walk into the living room together. He stands in front of me, with a gun and a flashlight, as if he were in a police operation. I think it's odd, but I know I shouldn't. This is really shit.

"Yeah... Do you have any tips on how to help us get out of here?" I ask quietly, but we have already made it to the protection suits room. It is also empty and I take the opportunity to lock the door as soon as we enter.

"If it's not Mind Flayer controlling dogs, it will be easier."

"Mind Flayer?" now I am confused and worried. "From the game? D&D?"

"Yes. This monster managed to use Will as a host to get out of the upside-down. He acted like a virus and also controlled these dogs." I must have looked like an idiot because Hopper almost laughs when he looks at me. "We managed to get it out of Will's body by exposing it to heat. Mind Flayer likes the cold... well, they reopened the gate and resurrected the monster..."

"Does that still walk for Hawkins?" I ask, a little concerned.

"Joyce destroyed the machine and closed the gate, so I hope not... I still think there must be a hole because, Mike, I swear I felt my daughter's presence yesterday. I need to find this hole so I can return."

"I think it exists, El's "dreams" are very real... She always sees the yesterday-El looking for you or asking for help to find you." I finish loading the last weapon while I talk to Hopper. "But, if the gate on the other side is still open, Mind Flayer will be there, right?"

"Yes," Hopper says as he closes his protective suit. "And that's my biggest fear. El closed the gate and that thing was chasing her for revenge. Those dogs and that Demogorgon are not conscious, Mike. They live hunting, they are wild. But Mind Flayer is different... The last time I saw El, we were saying goodbye. Nancy would take her to safety. I hope they succeeded."

I watch Hopper start to pick up the weapons I loaded and ammunition, getting ready to enter that horrible place, needing to pass through a room that we don't even know yet on what level it is... I know I promised El that I wouldn't go there - and no I'm going to - but I can't stop thinking about Hopper going through it all alone, clinging to the hope of having a gap so he can find his daughter in the past.

I don't know very well what happens to me and I even grab one of the protective cloth, but I hear him complain to me.

"What are you doing?" he asks while taking the clothes I had picked up in the closet. "You're not going there with me!"

"Hey, Mike." I hear Liv's voice on the radio and ignore Hopper. "We got to see the room and generator running. I see nothing but the gate and the machine is losing strength... but that doesn't seem to have influenced anything."

"Thank you, Liv." I answer knowing very well what it means. If the machine is losing power but the gate remains open as before, then it no longer depends on the machine. It already has enough energy to stay there.

_One thing at a time_ , I think. Now it's time to take Hopper back to his time, I can try using the machine to close the gate later.

I see Hopper collect what he needs and leave the room and I run to follow him. Owens, Liv, and Kali managed to start the generator, so some lights are on. Weak, but available. Better than relying entirely on flashlights.

"How will I know if you got there?" I ask Hopper and realize that I have only just thought about it now.

"Do not think about it," he says when we go down another floor by the stairs and we reach the corridor of access to the basement. "Just worry about returning to your home as soon as possible and keep taking care of El."

It bothers me to know that this conversation is heading towards a departure. Part of me doesn't want him to leave, even though I know he's not my father-in-law, even though I know he needs to go back. Having Hopper - or the idea of him - back, moved me a lot more than I imagined. I don't want to say goodbye.

I also don't want El from the past to be alone, she needs her father as much as my El did. I know how important his presence in her life was.

"Mike?"

I hear a familiar voice calling me, but I don't see anyone around but Hopper and it's definitely not his voice. I thought it was something on the radio too, but the sound seemed so close to my ear. I think it's strange, but I choose to ignore it and keep following Hopper.

"Mike..." I hear the voice again and clearer this time. So clear, I stop halfway and look at an intermediate corridor that I barely knew existed. There is nothing there.

I turn on the flashlight to see if I can see anyone, but there is no one here but Hopper and me.

"Mike, what's going on?"

I almost faint when I hear and see who's been calling me all this time. Part of me doesn't believe that, but it's entirely possible.

"El?" She is exactly as I saw her sleeping this morning, except that there is a wound somewhere in her head and there is a worrying amount of blood running down her face. "Why-"

"I do not feel well." I don't expect much to follow the opposite direction of the corridor and to find her, but she seems more distant with each step I take. "What is happening?"

"I asked you to stay." I see how upset she looks, but it's so hard to reach her... I hear some voices calling my name, but I ignore it. "Why are you here?"

"Because you brought me here!" she yells at me. "What is-"

"Hey!" she doesn't finish speaking because something pulls her away, something strong enough to drag her very hard and quickly. I think about shooting at what is pulling El, but I can't think straight because I can't see what exactly attacked her.

And even though I run faster than I could ever imagine, I keep watching as something drags her down the endless corridor of the lab, until she is pulled to another entrance on the right and I follow her. The only thing on my mind now is to get El out of here safe.

I turn right, still following El, but I can't even tell if I saw her or not because I feel something hitting my body hard, making me hit a wall.

**\------**

I feel something like a shock in my chest, but I can't move or open my eyes. I stay like this for a few seconds and an intense feeling of despair and helplessness is prevalent in me until I finally manage to open my eyes, but there is nothing.

It is a dark place and the floor is covered with water. I don't listen anything. I can only see a little of my reflection in the water on the floor and I notice that there is a bruise on the left side of my forehead that keeps bleeding, just like the bruise El had.

Shit.

"El?" I say her name two, six, ten times, but no one answers me. It's like there's nothing here but me. I'm in a dark room. There is terrible pain on the left side of my body and I can remember that something threw me against the wall when I was in the lab. And El had been pulled by something.

I try to get up to look for her, but I can't keep myself down for more than two seconds and I end up falling back against the floor. 

I manage to crawl until I see the reflection of a girl close to me and, perhaps out of fear, I manage to turn and walk away a little this time. I look at the girl and start to think I'm dead or something.

"Please wake up." she holds my face in her hands and I can barely decipher what I'm feeling. It's El, twenty-three years younger. "You need to wake up."

She is wearing a weird hospital outfit and has a bruise on her face. I feel something strong hit my chest again and I almost think I'm going to pass out, but yesterday-El holds my face more tightly.

"Wake up, Mike." she recognizes me, but I don't have time to ask her anything because I feel something against my chest once more and then everything is dark again.

**\------**

I feel a shock in my chest and I manage to open my eyes, but it takes me a while to understand what I see. I start to vomit something that looks like water and I hear a deep voice saying something to me. I close and open my eyes a few times to try to understand where I am and recover a little bit so I can go look for El, but the deep voice is gradually clearer and I can recognize Hopper.

"Mike? You motherfucker!" I feel Hopper hugging me and I try to let go of him because I need to find El as soon as possible. "I thought I had lost you!"

I don't quite understand his comment and I start looking around. It's a classroom, there are old and broken chairs around me and a blackboard, a bookcase with books covered in something that looks like vines... or snakes. Vines and snakes?

"Where's El?" I ask Hopper. "Why am I here? I shouldn't be here!"

"El? She is at Dustin's house, where you left her..." Hopper speaks softly and approaches me, indicating that I also need to do the same. "What did you see in the lab?"

"I saw El. She was hurt, she was down the hall, Hopper. How did you not see her there? Something pulled her by the leg, I need to find her now. Why am I here, I can not-"

Hopper covers my mouth with his hand and my body against his, so I can't let go of him or speak. I can't understand anything and El, being dragged or killed by an animal is the only thing I can think of. I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't and I don't know how I ended up in this fucking upside-down world.

"Hey, quiet!" I hear Hopper say low and close to my ear. "El wasn't there! You started running towards the gate and were calling out her name. I followed you, called you, looked for her, and did not find her. What you saw was not real, but it drew you here. I don't know what happened in the meantime, but one of those motherfucker dogs was pulling you somewhere, so I killed it and managed to drag you here."

How come it wasn't real? I saw her, just as I left her sleeping this morning. I need to go back. I try to let go of Hopper, but he holds me even tighter.

"Mike, it wasn't real. The path changed a little, I wanted to take you to the cabin, but I only found the school ... I saw a gap in the corridor and we are going to cross it. Let's go back to 2008, okay? But, look, boy, that Demogorgon has been following us for some time, but it didn't attack us. Do you know what else I saw? A part of Mind Flayer. So, be quiet, take a deep breath, and let me drag you down the hall. Let's go through it together."

I don't have much time to question him because he starts dragging me around, just like he said he would.

As soon as we leave the room where we were hiding, I recognize the place. It's Hawkins Middle School, I studied here for the six months when I lived in Hawkins before my dad moved because of his new job.

I don't have the best options available, so I follow Hopper - or he drags me along - to that gap on the wall in a corridor that led to the school gym.  
It is a small gap, much smaller than the other in the laboratory. Hopper uses a pocket knife to cut through the gelatinous layer and pushes me through the disgusting hole. This time, I don't land into something like another upside-down, but a more realistic and even similar to the 2008 world.

I still hear that Demogorgon sound, still distant, so I try a little to pull Hopper before the monster approaches him. The way is tight, but he manages to pass.

It's night, so not all the school lights are on. There is a huge bloodstain on the school lockers and that worries me a lot. Perhaps the dogs managed to get out of the lab. I look for my radio to try to talk to Owens, Liv, or Kali, but I can't find it.

Hopper pulls me over again and we walk down the school corridor looking for the way out, but he seems to know that very well. There are some strange things I notice along the way, like some Halloween masks that are stuck in the lockers.

We find the exit and Hopper accelerates the pace to get us out of here so we can go back to the lab. I start to wonder if it is not better to leave Hopper here until we find another opportunity to take him to 1985, but something catches my attention on the board, where there is a poster announcing a party at school.

“Hawkins Middle School Halloween! Saturday, October 30, at 5 pm. Organized by class A - 1985 ”.

"Hopper!" I call him and he comes to me and his look is a mixture of relief and sadness. "It's not 2008."

It's October 1985.


	37. Day: 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey yall

_I_ _need to go back._ That's the only thing on my mind right now. I have to go back. I promised El that I would not enter the upside-down world and would return home in two days. The time is different here and I don't know how long I was unconscious. I may have already missed two days.

I need to go back, so I leave Hopper looking at the sign on the wall and walk back to the corridor where the gap we cross is. He's back, he doesn't need me anymore, so everything will be fine.

"Mike?" I hear Hopper call me, but I don't stop to answer him. "Mike, wait!"

"Wait what? You're home, Hopper. Now, I need to get back to mine, okay? And give me a gun."

"What? No!" he slaps my hand when I try to take his gun. "Mike, something in there fucked your brain, that was a trap! You can't go back alone!"

"Hopper, no one can come back with me, come on! It is not a win-win. If you go with me, you will need to go back alone." I think about telling him that I saw El from the past hurt and in hospital clothes, but I'm not even sure if that was real. "Go see your daughter. I only have two days, in my time, to go back. I can not stay."

I can see how uncomfortable he is in this situation, but I really can't wait, let alone allow him to join me in this.

"Look, I can call someone who can help you." I can already imagine who, but I keep quiet. "Come with me to the police station, I'll get you some things, then we wait for help, okay?"

"You can't. Goodbye, Hop." I walk towards the gap again, but I feel when he pulls me by my shoulder. Really? What a son of a bitch.

I try to get Hopper to let me go, but we end up getting into a meaningless body fight and I lose, obviously.

"You will not come back alone!" I don't know how, but he takes a handcuff out of a pocket and holds me to him.

"You're crazy?!" I don't know why I try to free myself from the handcuffs, I think on impulse. It won't do any good, anyway. Fuck.

Hopper starts to pull me by the arm and I am forced to follow him to school. Everything is empty, raining a lot, and I hear the sound of some distant horns and sirens. He drags me through the rain anyway.

When we arrived at the schoolyard, we see cars badly parked, others are broken. I put this image together with the bloody school locker at school and I wonder if there was anything like the shootings that became recurrent after the 90s.

There is a car not so far from us and Hopper makes me follow him to it and, despite knowing that he is going to steal that car, I am even relieved that we do not have to walk through Hawkins' rainy dawn in search of such help that he insists that can do it.

As the car door is open, Hopper points a gun towards the driver's seat, but there is no one there. What I notice - and I hate to have been the one who managed to notice this - is another trail of blood on the floor, which makes me follow with my eyes until I see a body stretched not so far from us.

"Oh, shit!" I end up kicking the car's door and Hopper scowls at me, but I point to him what I just saw. "The owner of the car is there, ask him if you can borrow the keys."

"What the hell..." he grumbles when he sees the body. "What the hell happened here?"

"I'm not from here, how will I know?" he doesn't answer me and keeps looking at the corpse while the rain looks like it's going to dissolve us right here. "Hopper, the guy died. Are you going to get the car or what?"

He sighs loudly at me, looking annoyed. _Come on, I am handcuffed, in another reality, and is he the angry one?_ As if that were not enough, he tries to get in the car and forgets that he is stuck with me.

"Shit," he says before hitting the steering wheel. "I don't have the handcuff key."

"What?"

"Come on." I do what he asks without thinking twice and I get a fright when I hear the sound of the gunshot. "What the fuck, Hopper! You could have shot me!"

"Get in the car, Mike!" again, I don't have many options, so I get into the damn car, which was already on, and we go towards some bizarre Hawkins places. **\-----**

We stopped at a gas station to refuel. All the streets we passed were dark and some stores were broken. We have no idea what may have happened here, but considering that there is a gate to the upside-down at school, I believe that everything we witness here is related to that.

While I refuel the car, Hopper went to a convenience store to get something to drink and eat before we reached his destination. I wonder how I could get in touch with El while I'm here and even cling to a broken hope that my cell phone would work. In fact, I don't think cell phones even exist at that time. And even if it did, the signal is not compatible.

I also remember that my mom's note is still in my wallet and I didn't read her message. I don't know if reading now is a good idea, but I take off the small piece of paper. I need something that connects me to my life in 2008. Anything.

And when I finish reading it, I realize that it wasn't a good idea because now I feel more fucked up than before. For years I hoped my mom would finally leave my dad and, consequently, the drinks. And that's exactly what she did and asked El to write on a note for my birthday. The second part is even worse for me.

_Son, happy birthday. Maybe in January, I'll be in Chicago. I want to see your family grow._

_With love,_

_Mom._

Like the coward I always was, I fold the ticket again and hide it in my wallet. I prefer to pretend that I didn't read, that I don't know what my mother wanted to tell me. It will be easier to deal with what I am going through now if I do this... or at least I am convinced of it.

I will meet Hopper at the gas station convenience store as soon as I finish filling up the car he stole. When I walk into the store, I hear Hello Vietnam playing on the radio and find Hopper reading some newspapers while waiting at the register.

"What are you reading?" I ask when I approach him and read a note that he pointed out. It's about an event in honor of his memory. They think he's dead. "Imagine when they see you..."

"Yeah... but that's not even the worst now. Look, here. Hawkins' new chief is a guy from Louisiana. He also changed the entire local police team. Something serious is going on..."

"Do you think ... you know, they came back?" I ask suspiciously and I remember once again El from the past injured and in hospital clothes.

"I don't know... I don't think so, it was a scandal at the time. All because of your sister who revealed their shit to the press." Nancy, Nancy... causing problems for corrupt governments since the 80s.

"Where's the owner of this place? Hey, is anyone here?" I ask and Hopper complains to me, arguing that we can't afford it, but I just want to see if anyone can explain a little about what's going on.

"Who's there?" we heard someone scream from somewhere.

"Two customers, maybe?" I answer, but the person remains silent. "Hey, we'll pay, so if you can show up, help..."

The person doesn't answer, so I take my wallet to pay at least half of it since I don't usually carry cash and my credit card would never be accepted in 1985. Suddenly, we are surprised by the sound of something breaking the store's glass and invading the place. I barely have time to look at what happened and an old tiny man comes out of a back door and tries to shoot the thing.

What I didn't expect is that the invasion was made by one of those dogs from the upside-down. He obviously cannot hit the monster, so I throw myself at it before he gets attacked, allowing Hopper to have time to kill the creature with a fatal shot.

I feel that pain on the left side of my body again because I ended up falling with the old man on the floor. At least he looks fine.

I help him to get up, but he ignores and still complains, muttering something about being a man of courage to face the hellhounds, but he stops as soon as he recognizes Hopper.

"You..." He points the gun at Hopper and I step forward to try to convince him not to shoot anyone tonight. "Get out of the way, boy! Jim died three months ago, this one can only be a monster coming straight from hell."

"Sir, put that gun down!" I ask politely and try to think of something to convince him. "Listen, I'm agent... Neo. I'm from Chicago, I came to bring Hopper because he was kidnapped by some really bad guys in July. We are here to arrest them. Put the gun down, please."

"Show me your badge, then!" the angry gentleman asks me very suspiciously, but he ends up being distracted by the noise of two vehicles passing through the street at high speed. "This city has been crumbling for hours and these clowns don't know what to do... Nothing ever happened in Hawkins, now all the disgrace in this country happens here!"

I follow his gaze to the street and think I try to capture a little of what is happening... and it only gets worse. I look at Hopper and I think he already has an idea of what is causing all this.

Before I turn to say something to the old man, who still has the gun in his hand, I am caught by the sight of a brown and blue Station Wagon passing by very fast, but in the opposite direction to the police cars followed. I would recognize that Station Wagon anywhere.

I pull Hopper by his arm and he drops some things he had taken for both of us, but he follows me too, letting the old man curse alone at the convenience store. I hope he closes the store and seeks shelter.

I get in the car as fast as I can and Hopper does the same, throwing things in the back seat and I start the car, turning left while Hopper still tries to close the door.

"Boy, what the fuck is your problem?" he yells at me. "Where are you going?"

"I saw my mom's car! Brown and blue Station Wagon, I know that car, Hopper!"

"There are several Station Wagons in Hawkins! We need to go to the police station!"

"Do what there? Your friends and colleagues have been expelled, another guy is running Hawkins' security and apparently he sucks!" I can't see my mom's car anymore and it pisses me off. "Help me find the fucking car, Hopper!"

"Go ahead and turn right at the next street, I saw the reflection of the lights on the ground. Speed it up, boy!"

I change the gear of this old car and accelerate as much as the car can handle within the time it takes to turn the street. I can still see the Station Wagon at high speed from afar. I start following it until I hear Hopper mutter a “keep driving” and that's what I do, even though I find it odd that he lowers the window and pushes his body out. I look in the rearview and see three or four of those dogs following us. Holy shit.

Hopper holds onto the car door and I regret not putting the belt on. Whoever is driving the Station Wagon, is exceeding all the speed limits I thought the car would support. Unfortunately, the car Hopper stole is kind of shit for that.

As soon as we turn around, I see that one of those dogs manages to jump at the bottom of Station Wagon, and Hopper positions himself at the window to shoot the dogs again. He can even take one down, but there is another one following them from the side. The gun's ammo runs out, so Hopper reaches over to the backseat to grab more and load the rifle. I take advantage that he left there to bring me closer to Station Wagon from the side.

"I need to go faster, hold on." I say, but I don't think Hopper pays much attention to me. He starts shooting at the dogs right after.

"Die, you bastard!" he keeps shooting with the submachine gun we brought in from 2008. "I got two!"

"Okay, now get out the window!" - he continues ignoring, so I pull him by the pants. "Sit down, Hopper, I'll need to turn."

Hopper holds onto the car door and I regret not putting the belt on. Whoever is driving the Station Wagon, is exceeding all the speed limits I thought the car would support. Unfortunately, the car Hopper stole is kind of shit for that.

As soon as we turn around, I see that one of those dogs manages to jump at the bottom of the Station Wagon and Hopper positions himself at the window to shoot again. He can even take one down, but there is another one following them from the side. The gun's ammo runs out, so Hopper reaches over to the backseat to grab more and load the submachine gun. I take advantage that he left there to bring me closer to the Station Wagon from the side.

"Hey, Hopper!" I call him and he just mumbles something. "You hold on there, I'll go over that son of a bitch."

Surprisingly, I manage to get over the dog, which must have turned into something very ugly because of the tires.

It has rained again in Hawkins and the track is more slippery (and I can only see it now because of the adrenaline).

I even try to look back and see who is driving the Station Wagon, but another dog jumps on the hood of my car and I end up losing a bit of direction, making it spin a little on the track, which was good enough for the dog lose my balance and I take the opportunity to press it between the car and a wall of a store.

I keep the car still and I watch a little bit of the monster I just killed. I think I broke it in half... it's amazing how this creature only has a gigantic mouth in a shape that reminds me of the lotus flower.

Hopper finally finishes reloading the gun and I see that the Station Wagon is stopped, not that far from us, but no one gets out of it. It could be someone from my family, I think and maybe that's what makes me go out, in the middle of the rain on an almost empty street except for dead dogs and cars.

The headlights are high, too high and I raise my hands as a sign that I am not a threat. I get a little closer and I hear the car door slam, so I imagine Hopper is out too.

Someone gets off the Station Wagon and I try a little to see who's there, but the high beam and the rain hinder me a little. I move closer until I can see that it is a woman and she points a gun at me.

"I won't hurt you! I just want to know if they're okay!" I say out loud, but I don't think that convinces her much. As I keep getting closer, I can see that she is not that young, but a mature woman. Her dress, despite being dirty and wet, is something I would recognize anywhere.

"Mom?" I say that in thinking and I scold myself immediately. I didn't want her to recognize me, I don't want anyone to recognize me, actually. She is not my mother, she is the mother of another Mike.

"What did you say?" she asks me and I start to feel a little more relieved to know that she didn't understand me. "What did you say, boy?"

"Karen?!" I hear Hopper say behind me and I see my mother, no, Karen, go into shock when she sees him. She drops the gun and I have the impression that she is going to pass out too, so I run to hold her, and she clings to my hand so tightly... I can't say what I'm feeling right now.

"You're dead..." she whispers to Hopper and, for some reason, tries to hide behind me, but Hopper hurries to calm her down.

"No, I didn't die... Get stuck in a place..." he tries to explain hiding parts of what really happened and I remember he once told me that my parents have no idea about the gate... and El. "I managed to get back. He helped me."

My mom looks at me as soon as Hopper finishes speaking and, for fear that she will recognize me, I pull away and look at the car. I see that there's a little girl in the back seat, scared. Maybe it's Holly, the little sister I never had in my life.

A red-haired girl and a blonde girl are also in the back seat, scared and hurt, but the blonde, who I now realize is a few years older, puts her arms around the little girl's shoulders.

After trying a little, I can recognize the redhead. It's Max. _Max Mayfield_. She looks back at me with such strangeness that I walk away from the car. I don't want to scare them anymore.

"What happened?" I ask my mother, no, Karen, and she answers me in a frightened and shaky voice. I take her hand again and she returns at the same intensity.

"I don't know... I spent the day out with Ted and Holly. When I came back, I found the city like this. I saw the girls at the store and a monster like that invaded there... Ted and Steve tried to help, but..." she starts to cry and I think I know what that means. I don't know the boy Steve, but I do know that Ted is my father.

"Are they dead?" Hopper asks the question that I don't dare to ask.

"I don't know. Steve asked me to take the girls away and told me that he would take Ted to the hospital. I don't know, I don't know what's going on. I need to find my children. I don't know where they are, Hopper."

"Hey, Karen..." I call her even without looking in her eyes. I don't think I could do it. "Do you have any safe place to stay?"

"I heard on the radio that my neighborhood is isolated, but I can get in. The police are doing protection there." I find this weird, but I'm not surprised. If it's the same house I lived in when I was a kid, it's a good, almost upper-class neighborhood in Hawkins. The simplest neighborhoods must be counting on their luck.

"Okay. Go home, Karen. Do you know where the Byers are?" Hopper asks and I notice a tone of agony. He can't ask about El.

"They moved to Chicago recently but were coming back to do something... Joyce, Jonathan, Will, and Jane, the girl Joyce adopted. Your niece, the orphan, isn't she?" she asks and it makes us kind of relieved and tense at the same time. If Jane is El, she will not be alone. "Mike was nervous, I think something happened. They are coming here, they may have arrived... I don't know."

"Ok, ok... Thanks for helping." I speak in an attempt to calm her down a little. "We'll find them all, right, Hopper?"

"Right," he says firmly. "We will find them."


	38. Midnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey folks, how are you doing? :)
> 
> let me know what you think of this story (if you want). sorry about any mistake. bye!

I hear the creaking of wood as I walk through the door of the cabin where Hopper and El lived. Not much is left. Photos, furniture, appliances, everything that was here before is gone, only part of the cabin is still standing.

He gets angry and gets in the car, starting it without even waiting for me. I try to imagine the extent of his frustration at seeing this place in pieces. That's where he lived with his daughter, after all. It is also the third place we visit while looking for the Byers and, consequently, El. If we find the other Mike and Nancy, it will be a bonus.

Before leaving in search of the others, we accompanied my mother - Karen - to take Max and the other girl, who told me to be called Robin, to the other Wheeler house, exactly where I lived during my childhood in the other reality.

The place is surrounded by police and firefighters, so we don't get too close, we just watch until they let it pass and are safe.  
Since then, we passed the store where, according to Hopper, Joyce worked, we visited the almost abandoned trailer where Hopper lived and, now the cabin.

"Where are we going?" I ask when I get in the car and I see Hopper release the air he was holding. He is losing control with each passing minute. "I think we should go to their house. I can drive if you want."

"Joyce left, Mike. I don't think we're going to find anyone there," he replies while stepping on the gas and starts driving. "She left, probably sold the house."

"But it wasn't for so long ago, Hopper... Maybe nobody bought it yet and my mom said they were back. They may have gone there."

He doesn't answer me, not even to complain, so I decide to be quiet while he's driving. The rain hasn't stopped falling since we got here and we haven't even had a chance to change clothes, so we're still wet. I left my things in the glove compartment of the car to at least not ruin everything because of the humidity.

My watch reads 00:37 am, I believe it has adapted to Hawkins' time since, by my count, I have been here for less than three hours, and Hopper and I entered the laboratory in 2008 at 9:00 am. I wonder how much time has passed in my reality... if El has woken up, if she felt really bad because of the meds, if Kali, Owens and Liv are looking for Hopper and me, if they left there, if they entered the upside world... I hope they did not.

I rest my head on the car window and watch the rain outside, which reminds me of the day we visited Max and Lucas after the girls were born. I close my eyes and the first image that my brain brings back is of El carrying Anna with only a few days of life, so tiny, but with such a strength to hold El's thumb as if it were the only thing that existed in the world at that moment.

I wish I could talk to El now, but deep down, I prefer that she is terribly upset with me and doesn't want to know about me for the next two days. It would be much better if that happened. If El doesn't hear from me, I can't imagine what she would do.

But I really miss her, so I get the photo I always leave in my wallet. I changed it recently, so now I have one that I took of her on the balcony of the hotel room we stayed in many years ago when we traveled to Paris, for a psychology event that she was invited to. We always wanted to see the city and I took the opportunity to go with her. We celebrated 8 years of dating during that trip. It was the craziest thing we did together.

I keep smiling when I look at the photo and remember that day. El had just woken up and was on the balcony looking at the city. It was our first day in France, we had arrived the night before and collapsed in bed because we were so tired because of the flight hours. I remember I woke up and saw her on the porch, still wearing her sleepwear and her hair a little messy. I wanted to take the picture without her knowing it, but I couldn't keep quiet and she noticed when I approached and turned around, smiling. She spent days complaining that I wasted a photograph on the camera film with a photo in which she would probably be “horrible and sleepy-looking”. But in the end, the photo was great and she stopped complaining.

"You're going home." Hopper's voice reminds me of the memories of that day. "Let's stop in one more place. If they are not there, I will find a way to talk to Owens and-"

"Hopper, we need to focus on one thing at a time. First, we find Byers and El, then Nancy, Lucas, Dustin and Mike. Finally, we can get in touch with Owens. OK?"

"Okay." I'm happy with his answer, but I just keep silent. I don't want to talk much now. "I'm sorry, Mike. For everything."

"For everything?" I ask, slightly confused.

"I didn't want you to be stuck here. You have a great life in 2008 and now you're stuck here... I'm sorry. I think I'm still like a black hole, attracting and destroying everything around me. I can't do anything right."

I hear Hopper say that and I feel like I'm talking to myself. What he says is _exactly_ how I feel sometimes. I think of what El used to say to me in those moments.

"It's not your fault." I try to say it in the most confident way possible. "You... I know what you're feeling right now. Seriously, it's not your fault. I know you feel responsible for everything and everyone in this city, but what is happening now was not caused by us. If you want to blame someone, blame Brenner."

"That son of a bitch..." He has a strange expression, but I ignore it. "I'm glad he's dead."

"Good." I say and realize that we passed very close to the Hawkins lab and I have the impression that I saw something in the building, but Hopper accelerates and I prefer to ignore. There are too many strange things happening at the same time and I must be a little paranoid.

**\-----**

Hopper ended up taking me to the Byers's old house. Everything is dark and a little abandoned. I even knock on the door a few times, but no one answers. It was obvious that they would not be here, nor do I know why I suggested it.

I think about getting back in the car, but I see Hopper coming towards the door and I pull away just before he kicks it hard enough to force it open. _Damn_.

He walks in with all that policeman's pose, gun in hand and a flashlight and heads towards one of the rooms while I head straight to the back.

I never came here. I didn't know Will's childhood home in my reality. We were friends for six months, the time I lived in Hawkins. He and his mother moved to Seattle shortly after my family moved. Jonathan doesn't even exist in my reality.

There's a door in the back and I open it and see a yard with tall grass and a little house, probably where they kept tools or something. There's a clothesline too, and I think when I see a shirt hanging there. It shouldn't be there if no one lives in that house.

I approach the clothesline to look at the shirt and feel something hit my back, making me fall forward a little. I turn to strike back at whoever hits me, but I get punched in the face and something very hard crashes into my belly and I feel a little out of breath. I fall on my knees, still trying to breathe properly when I hear a gun cracking and someone talking quietly to me, but I don't understand it well and I try to clarify that I'm not a threat to them.

"Hey, wait, wait!" I cough a couple of times, but I can breathe a little better now. "I didn't come to hurt you. I'm not armed."

"Who are you?" I recognize the voice and try to look at the person who asks me, but I am pushed against the floor again. "Don't look at me! Who are you?"

"I'm a friend, Nancy!" she is quiet and I consider it a confirmation. She is my sister, but there is someone with her.

"How does he know your name?" The other voice seems to be Joyce, but I can't look at them.

"I don't know..." Nancy replies and looks nervous. "How can I know if you are trustworthy?"

"I brought someone with me. Can I call him?" Hopper could show up soon and help me here, but I prefer not to wait too long for him. Also, I think we've found who we're looking for. He will be happy.

"What's your name?" Joyce asks me nervously. Holy shit. "And who did you bring?"

"Hopper!" I shout his name and I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that he listened because I feel even more irritated. "Hopper, at the fucking the yard!"

"Stop playing with us, asshole!" Nancy yells at me, annoyed. "I'll shoot if you don't tell me who it is!"

"Hey!" I hear Hopper say - in a hurry - and I can see him, even though I'm surrendered by my sister.

Hopper lowers the gun he was carrying and comes towards us. No, actually, he goes to meet Joyce who hugs him tightly. I remember him saying that she turned off the machine and caused the explosion. I imagine she must have spent all this time thinking that she had caused his death.

Nancy lets go of me and I take the opportunity to sit and catch my breath while leaning on a wooden fence.  
To my surprise, I see Joyce kissing Hopper and I wonder if they were dating... The Hopper I knew, future-Hopper, didn't date many women after he adopted El. I think he was afraid of trusting his daughter and himself in someone else, but I remember that he and the future-Joyce had a very beautiful friendship.

I start to wonder that Hopper and Joyce didn't date in that reality because even Nancy is paralyzed seeing the two together, but she gives up on watching them and looks at me. I hope she doesn't recognize me.  
I'm embarrassed by Nancy's intense gaze and try to get her to stop looking at me.

"Were they dating?" I say pointing to Joyce and Hopper, who are still hugging each other as if there is nothing else in the world. "What? Go see him... You may be missing him very much."

"Who are you?" she asks me again and I choose to be a bit harsh when answering it:

"Does not matter. It's better not to know. I won't be staying long." I get up and see that my clothes are dirty with dirt and more looked than before. "Who else is with you?"

**\------**

Nancy opens the door to the little house in the backyard and I see when two teenagers leave as soon as they hear her say it's okay, that they can leave. Two teenagers: Dustin and Lucas. They go straight to Hopper. I almost feel sick to see them here, but not because it's something bad, but because it's almost unbelievable for me. I wonder if Hopper felt that way when he met me.

I feel like someone is still missing, so I look at Nancy expecting that she will give me the answers I need, but she just looks at me weirdly enters the little house, leaving me outside. I begin to see myself as an outsider here, a stranger. I move further away from the house and spend time looking at the still cloudy sky. At least it stopped raining.

"Where's El?" I hear Hopper ask someone while I pay attention to the people around me again. "Why isn't she here?"

"Hop..." Joyce starts to speak, but I see that she is very shaken and I start to feel distressed. "El disappeared. We came here to look for her, but... I'm sorry."

"How come she disappeared, Joyce?" His voice is low and I realize that Joyce won't be able to explain what really happened. She is crying a lot and just whispers an apology.

"El ran away from home. The new one, in Chicago." it is Dustin who takes the initiative to explain what happened. "Johnathan found a letter she wrote saying that she needed to regain her powers to find you, Hopper. She disappeared with a sister... I don't remember her name. Karla..."

"Kali?" I speak her name with no intention of drawing attention to me, but that's exactly what happens. Shit.

"Who are you?" Lucas, who do I realize just now that I was staring at me for a long time, asks. "How do you know who Kali is?"

"I'm just guessing." he doesn't fall for it and I turn to talk to Joyce. "Did anyone stay in Chicago to look for her?"

"Yes, Johnathan and Will are there. I came alone this afternoon and met the boys and... where's Mike?"

"He's with Nancy," Dustin says with a sad look. "I think we need to look for a safer place to talk. I'll see if Max answers." he moves away from us gets an old walkie talkie, with antenna and everything. A Supercom. I had one when I was a kid.

"Max is at Mike's house." I instinctively turn around when I hear Hopper say my name and I end up making Lucas even more suspicious of me. "It's relatively safe there. We can go there, we will leave you guys and I will look for El. That's it, I will get them."

Hopper goes to the little house where Nancy and the other Mike are... the past-Mike. I never imagined that I would see myself as a teenager. Never.

I don't even know how to react to that. A strong wind passes around us and I feel cold for the first time since I got here and the feeling is worse since I am soaked again. I'm afraid of catching the flu while I'm here and end up disturbing more than helping people.

I look at my watch again: 1:35 am.

"Yesterday-El" is lost. She went away with Kali in an attempt to "get her powers back", according to Dustin. I feel distressed because, to me, past-El was using her power to try to find Hopper, but the gate was interfering and, somehow, she ended up finding my El in the future.

I remember seeing yesterday-El when I was in that dark and empty place. She was hurt and in hospital clothes... It might be useful to look for her in a hospital. Or maybe not... I feel helpless. I'm stuck here and I don't know if I'll ever be able to get home. I don't know how to help Hopper find his daughter. I don't know if I'll be able to help all of them survive everything that is happening now.

"Hi." I startle when I hear someone call me and touch my shoulder, but it's just Joyce. I can also see Lucas staring at me still suspicious, but distant and I try to ignore him. "Sorry to scare you... I'm sorry I aimed a gun at you, it's just... things are complicated here."

"Yeah." _I know,_ I think, but I just give her a short answer. I observe Joyce a little bit and I hardly see any difference from Joyce from my reality, except for the age, but still Joyce Byers. Sweet, anxious, short, hardworking.

Joyce hugs me tight and I need to bend down a little to return it. It is sincere and comfortable. I feel less alone with her and I think I would have liked to hug my mother when I met her on the street.

"Thanks for bringing him back." she whispers to me before letting go and rubbing my face gently and brushing some wet hair off my forehead like my mother did when I was a child. "You... you look like someone I know. Someone close and distant at the same time. Someone good... Are you okay?"

"I'll." I choose to say that and she seems to be asking me something more but is interrupted by the sound of a door opening.

Nancy, Hopper and Mike leave where they were, and, for the first time, I see myself. A twenty-three years younger version of me. The bowl hair, the starched clothes my mother made me wear, a tall, clumsy creature.

But Mike is sad, desperate, maybe. He holds the walkie talkie so tightly, it looks like it'll break at any moment, just as I imagine my mind is breaking into a million pieces now and I start to feel sick and dizzy, so I tell them that I'll wait in the car, just to be alone for a few minutes.

**\------**

2:28 am. What time is it in my reality? I've trying to solve this puzzle and find the answer and, even so, it is not enough. I don't know how different is the time between Hawkins in 1985 and Hawkins in 2008. I just hope that I'm still on time.

I'm driving the car Hopper stole in the schoolyard. I'm taking the boys, Dustin, Mike and Lucas, the last one in the passenger seat. The idea is to take them to the other Mike's parents' house to be with Karen, Holly, Max and Robin.

I'm nervous and now and then I find myself looking in the rearview mirror with the excuse that this way I can see if Hopper, Joyce and Nancy are still following us. We're going at low speed, trying to get the attention of any of those creatures.

However, whenever I look in the mirror, I see a little of the other Mike and look away. He's quiet, constantly messing with the Supercom and Dustin seems to be trying to convince him that everything will be fine soon. Lucas, unlike Dustin, doesn’t seem patient. He insisted on going in the passenger seat, by my side and I felt his gaze on me several times, especially on my promise ring, which seems to weigh a ton on my finger.

"Can we stop at the grocery store? I want to get some things." Dustin asks me and I'm quick with the answer:

"No."

"Come on, we'll be quick!" Dustin insists and I sigh loudly. "Buddy, we don't know each other very well but, look, if any of us gets attacked by those creatures, we will need a lot of material to make bandages, so it's a good idea to stop right there and-" 

"Dustin, enough!" it's the first time that the other Mike says something. "Please stop there. Maybe there is something that can be useful for us."

"Do you know what is useful?" I ask them all, but I don't have much space to answer. "Be quiet and go to a safe place."

"Look, it will be very fast." Lucas says to me in a more polite tone than the other boys and, as soon as he speaks, a speeding car passes by us. "It'll be faster than that car."

I see a store building with broken glass not so far from where we are, so I prefer not to discuss much. Although I'm irritated, I have to admit that what Dustin said makes sense. We don't know how long we will be in this situation, so whatever we can do to ensure our survival, the better. The house will be full of people very soon.

I ask Dustin to use the super com to let Hopper know that we are going to stop and park the car at the market door. I go out first, with the gun and the flashlight we left in the car. Apparently, the store is not that big and is empty. I walk between all the sessions and the only thing I hear is the song playing on the speakers.

Half of the store has the lights on and the other does not, but it is enough to get some things very quickly and get out. Hopper must have parked too. It may be faster than I imagined.

As soon as I turn around to call the guys, I run into Lucas and Dustin. Mike is a little far from us, closer to the door and I see that Hopper is talking to Joyce outside.

"Where are you from?" Lucas questions me.

"Chicago." I answer quickly. "Go get your things, we don't have much time."

"Really, Mike?" I get no reaction when I hear Lucas call me by my name and try to find a response that makes sense. No one but Hopper knows who I am. "Michael Theodore Wheeler, December 23, 1971. Driver's license: April 17th, 2005, in New York."

There it is, the answer I needed. Lucas took my wallet from the car's glove compartment. I look at Dustin and notice that he has an expression similar to Lucas's while the other Mike looks at me with a suspicious look. And anger.

"Go get your stuff, I don't have time for this-"

"Why do you have a picture of El in your wallet?" the other Mike comes up to me, a little aggressive, pushing his index finger into my chest. He's almost as tall as I am and I remember when a doctor told my mom that I would stop growing up at 17.

"I don't know what you're talking about, brat." I take his hand away from me and I am pushed by Dustin, who yells at me:

"What are you, huh? A spy? Are you Russian?" Dustin's scandal catches the attention of Hopper, who enters the market asking what's going on and I take the opportunity to compose myself a little and try to take my wallet from Lucas, but I can't.

"Listen," I say, extremely irritated and take a few deep breaths so I don't lose my head and drag them back to the car. "We don't have time to hear your bullshit, okay? I'm not Russian, my name is a coincidence and the person in the photo is not your “El”, okay? Now go get your stuff and go back to the fucking car!"

"Mike..." Hopper says to me and I hate that he called me by my name. "Do not move. Look at me."

Doing what he says seems like the most difficult thing in the world, but I try. Lucas pulls a slingshot out of his pocket and I don't know if I'm more nervous or hysterical. If I have any of those monsters behind me, I highly doubt that a slingshot can save me.

"Mike, come here slowly." I do what Hopper asks me, one step at a time, trying to look at him all the time, but the boys look is scary.

I see something too, something like one of those snakes-vines, but ten times bigger and more disgusting, as if the snake had no skin and its flesh was completely exposed. And it's right behind Dustin.

But before I can warn him or give Hopper a sign, the snake pulls Dustin by the arm and throws him out of the store and I barely see what happens to him because Lucas pulls me towards him while Hopper shoots at whatever was behind me, something I now see is the same as what pulled Dustin.

"Mike, get out of here!" I ask since he is close to the exit and he obeys. I hope things out there are better than in here. "Lucas, go with him!" I ask while trying to get back the gun I was holding and Hopper keeps shooting that thing.

"No!" Lucas says determined and throws something that was on the store shelf against the second snake, which reacts by going in his direction, but I manage to get him in time.

The thing was about to attack Lucas, but I managed to hold it's head before the worst happened. However, I don’t have enough strength to hold the creature and I ask, once again, for Lucas to get out of here and he walks away, but I can’t see him leaving the store because this time I’m thrown against the wall and a horrible headache comes up as soon as I fall back to the ground. There are a few drops of blood too, so I think I got hurt badly this time.

I hear a car noise outside and hope Joyce has taken Nancy and the boys away from here. Hopper no longer has bullets in the gun he had, so I use mine to shoot the creature that was attacking him.

"Hop, the other corridor!" he hears me this time and goes to where I asked. I passed by there before and saw some kitchen knives on the shelves. It must be useful.

This time, it's the bullets of my gun that ends as soon as Hopper comes back from the other corridor with a small ax and tries to cut one of the snakes that was right behind me. For a second, I have the theory that with each hit Hopper hits on one, the other feels it too.

But she recovers too quickly, fast enough to trap me between her and a wall and I try to think of something to get away from, but I see the creature come towards me and stop inches from my face as if something is holding it The. I slide, still leaning against the wall until I sit on the floor, unable to take my eyes off the creature in front of me, trying to squirm and get rid of whatever is holding it. I can't really see, but I think the same is happening with the other snake that was attacking Hopper.

Beside me, I see my wallet and the photo of El that I brought with me. I slowly reach out and grab my things, cursing under my breath when I realize the photo is crumpled and smeared with blood.

Snakes make a strange sound as if they are in pain. This sound is accompanied by a groan, almost a cry, of strength from someone I have the impression of knowing very well.

I barely see when the creatures split in half, spreading something gooey and red all over the place.

And that sound that I recognized is, in fact, someone I know, someone I wish I didn't find here. I should have known by the force that was imposed on the creatures, by the time that I am away from home, by the sound that I heard. The person who saved us now is the same person from the photo I kept in my wallet. It's El. My El, the one from the future. The "future-El".

She doesn't even look at me, not because she didn't notice me here, but because there's someone she hasn't seen in a long time. And in contrast to that moan, almost a cry, of strength, her voice is sweet and soft when she calls for the person she thought she would never see again:

"Dad?"

_Fuck._


	39. One whole week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEEEEEY!! I know, I know, it's been a while. Enjoy (or not).

**December 25, 2008. Chicago, Illinois**

**Day: 1**

I feel that pressure in my stomach before I can even open my eyes and see anything, and I know what that means. I get up as fast as I can - hitting myself on the nightstand and the door in the process - and go to the closest bathroom. I think I threw up everything I ate yesterday.

I feel someone hold my hair while I cough because of the discomfort, and for a few seconds, I have the impression that Mike is with me, but it's Will. I hate that he's seeing me in that situation again.

"Hey... It's over, it's ok now," he says while trying to pin my hair with something. "How are you? Feeling something other than nausea?"

"Headache, tiredness. I feel like a truck ran over me." I try to sound lighter when answering him, but I don't know if it served any purpose. "What time is it?"

"Almost 2 pm." Will gives me a tight smile before helping me up. "Why don't you take a shower, huh? We can go out, walk, talk... The kids want to make snow angels and adults want to talk about complicated things of life."

I smile at his comment, but I don't know if I want to talk about the complicated things in my life. I wanted this year to end perfectly because this is the first time in three years that I have celebrated birthdays and Christmas with Mike and hoped that we could spend this week together as well.

"I'll leave you to think about my proposal, okay?" Will says before kissing my forehead and leaving the bathroom.

I notice that I'm not wearing my engagement ring and can't even remember taking it off last night. I go back to the bedroom to get something to wear when I see a note on the nightstand, next to the ring. It's a note from Mike.

_"Good Morning or Afternoon. I took off your ring last night because I know your hands tend to get swollen because of the medicine and I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable._

_I'll be home in two days. Let's celebrate the new year's eve on the beach?_

_I love you._

_Mike "_

What scares me when I read the message he left is that I can't feel anything. I also can't believe the promise that he'll be back in two days, but I try to stick to this promise as long as I can.

I don't want to lose Mike, under any circumstances, but I feel I've already lost part of him and our relationship at some point in our history since he returned to Chicago. So, these days celebrating his birthday, Christmas and New Year far away from Hawkins, made me hope to get that sense of loss out of my mind.

I think about calling him, but I know this isn't right. He's constantly being watched in there, so I decide to send a message later.

But, if Mike plans to return in two days, where will he sleep? I think about calling Liv and asking her not to let him work all night, but she must be monitored as he is.

I don't see any other options and my head feels like it's going to explode, so I choose to take a shower and try to get busy enough to make the day end quickly.

**Day: 2**

I didn't hear from Mike yesterday, and apparently, I won't have today either. I called him last night, but he didn't answer. Liv didn't return my message, either. Maybe they are both stuck at work so far, and even though I don't mean to, I can't help but feel uncomfortable by their proximity.

Dustin, Will and Brad have been great companies for me, just as Max and Lucas are, but something is going on between them and I wonder if it is related to the trip and Mike's “disappearance”.

I have been out of touch for 32 hours with my fiance and our two closest friends are acting weird.

Liv doesn't answer the phone. Kali also did not respond to the message I sent earlier today and that is exactly why I am now at home, alone, with all the things that were in Mike's backpack scattered on my bed. I need to find something that can help me to help him in case something bad is happening to him.

I know it's wrong to snoop on his stuff, but I'd rather do that now than wait while he's in Hawkins dealing with who knows what.

The first thing that gets my attention is a folder with the lab identification. I open it carefully and see a stack of paper full of scribbles, calculations and markings. There are also some images, of a place that I quickly associate with the one I see in some dreams and I have the feeling of having a déjà vu. Since I don't know how much it can help me, I leave the folder separated.

There is an envelope too, but there are only the photos we took on his birthday and Will printed it soon after. I take one of the pictures where Mike was smiling at something the kids were showing him. Seeing this photo now makes me want to talk to him, so I pick up the phone and dial his number, but now it ends up going to voice mail.

"Hi Mike," I try to keep my voice firmer so as not to worry him. "I haven't been able to talk to you since yesterday... now it looks like you have no signal, but please call me when you can. Nothing serious, I just need to know that you're okay. I came home, I'll wait for you here and order something nice for us to have dinner. I love you, drive carefully."

I hang up and hope he can hear my message as soon as possible and get back to me.

I suddenly feel bad for going through his things, so I take the folder from the lab and the envelope with the printed photos and take it to the office, leaving everything on the table.

As soon as I get back to the bedroom, I start to pick up the clothes we took to Dustin's house, and separate them to wash later when a shirt catches my eye. It's the green, long-sleeved shirt that Mike wore for Christmas. There is blood on the sleeve and another on the hem of the shirt.

I pick up my phone again and call Max, but it takes a while for someone to answer it and I can't wait for her to speak when I ask what I need to know:

"Max, do you know if Mike was hurt when he came home at Christmas night?" I don't even know if she managed to understand me. "After he took Kali home... did you notice?"

"Hi, El." it was Lucas who picked up the phone. "Max told me about a vase that broke that night and Mike stayed to clean. He hurt his hand in the process, you know he's messy and-"

"He's not, Lucas." I cut him because Mike is not messy and I know he was very nervous that night. "Did he talk to you about Hawkins? Why he's there today?"

"I know as much as you do." I hear him sigh on the phone. "El, you're nervous because you have not heard from him yet... do you want to come here? Staying alone at home is not going to do you any good."

"No, I'll wait for him here. Thanks, Lucas." I hang up the phone before he answers me. I leave my cell phone on the table and pick up Mike's clothes to put in the washing machine.

 _He'll be here at home soon, in a few hours_. I say to myself out loud in an attempt to make myself believe it.

But it was in vain.

When I see the clock read 8:15 pm, I'm more nervous than I thought I would be able to. I called Mike more than twenty times and he didn't answer. I asked for Roast Beef to have dinner together, chose our favorite movie, put on the clothes he likes best on me, but he didn't come home, despite the promise that he would be back in two days.

I'm torn between looking for someone who can help me or letting the anxiety consume me until Mike gets home.

On an impulse, I take a pill of the medicine to sleep, but I regret it soon after. I wanted to see him come home, but I know the medicine will make me sleep, and when I wake up, he'll be here.

**Day: 3**

I feel the hot water running over my body while feeling his unmistakable presence and the enormous relief when he embraces me, his chest against my back and his kiss on my neck.

"Sorry to be home late." I hear his sweet voice in my ear. "I was not feeling good. I'm sorry, love."

"It's ok, Mike." I turn to look him in the eye and hold his face, but he looks so confused... and pale.

He looks down and I follow his eyes until I see a horrible amount of blood on his chest, coming from a bruise that I can hardly describe how horrible it is.

"Hi, Jane." I hear that voice that tormented me for twelve years, the voice of the man who took everything from me. I look behind Mike and see Brenner holding a gun. I somehow understand that Brenner shot Mike. "I'm happy to see you again, daughter. I'm glad he brought me back to you." 

I open my eyes suddenly just to see I am no longer in my bathroom and Mike is not with me. I try to breathe more slowly before getting up from the couch, but even this is difficult for me. I feel a horrible headache, accompanied by nausea and I feel a little disoriented too.

"Mike?" I call him because I see that it is already day, the third day, so he should be here. "Mike..."

I hear nothing but my voice echoing through the room. I manage to get up a little and look at the clock on the wall: 11:39 am.

I walk slowly to the bedroom, where I find my cell phone and the first thing I do is call him, but I'm not answered.

I've got a few calls from Max this morning and one from Kali last night, but I can barely hold my phone because my hands are shaking so much... It is the third day, he should be here, as he promised.

Even though I feel dizzy, I walk as fast as I can until I get to his office in search of something that can help me understand why he is not at home, why he needed to go to Hawkins, and, mainly, why he lied to me.

I find that folder again, with the Hawkins lab symbol printed on the cover. I open it in hurry and go through all the folders, looking for some notes from him, but I just find one thing that get me nervous. A piece of paper written “Call 008. Maybe the sister can help”.

_Kali._

I remember the strange way that Mike and Kali looked at each other on Christmas Eve and how he looked when he came back from Dustin's house. I try to remember the details... Something about Owens being in Kali's apartment and a problem in the lab. The isolated area because of an accident... at least now I know which place I should go to first.

**\-------**

Kali looks extremely surprised to see me at the door, and I don't expect his invitation to come in. I am surprised to see that she has two suitcases ready in the living room and the apartment has no decorative objects. I wonder if she is moving.

"El... what are you doing here?" I hear Kali ask me, quite nervous. "How are you?"

"What do you know about Mike at Hawkins this week?" I watch her widen her eyes and walk away from me when I ask. "Look, Mike brought you home on Christmas night and came back saying he needed to spend two days in Hawkins after meeting Owens here!"

"El, I don't know... I..." Her reaction is so strange, sad and nervous that I get scared. "You haven't heard from him, right?"

"Right." for a second, I find the question strange because she wouldn't know if I managed to speak to Mike or not, but the rhetorical tone makes me suspect something about her. "Please, Kali... Tell me what you know. I've tried to talk to him in every way possible and-"

"Every way?" _no_ , I think. I know I could search for it using my mind, but it seems so wrong.

"No... I won't use that, Kali." I answer, but even I can't believe it. "He promised me he would be back in two days, but it seems that something serious has happened in that place. Liv doesn't answer me either and I don't know what else to do."

"Maybe you should start considering... El, the situation was not the best possible and it was isolated."

Kali doesn't look directly at me and that's exactly why I know that she knows what's going on there, but the way she talks makes me consider the worst scenario, even without meaning to.

"What should I consider?" I ask and she just shrugs and it only serves to make me even more frustrated. "What do you know?"

"That's the problem I don't fucking know! I-Look... Mike went to the lab with Owens and Liv." she stops for a few seconds, still avoiding looking directly at me. "I know nothing more than this. I need to solve something outside the city. I'm sorry."

I watch Kali leave the room in search of something in the rooms and I think again of what she suggested to me: look for Mike using my mind or consider that something worse has happened.

Sometimes I think that anxiety and fear are destroying my brain and maybe I am, because the next thing I realize is that I came to the kitchen to get something I shouldn't touch.

I find a gray pot at the bottom of the cupboard and look at the door again before opening it. I find exactly what I was looking for: LSD and cocaine. I take a deep breath before I take the LSD pills and try not to think too hard about what I'm doing.

I put the pills in my pants pocket and put the jar back in the cupboard before Kali finds me there. I don't know if she is suspicious of what I did because her look is sad, but I don't open my mouth to say anything, I just wait for some attitude from her.

"Maybe you should go to the police station and say he's gone." She shrugs before turning away, but gives me a clear message before leaving me alone again. "Put what you found back in the pot."

"Hey, I'm not taking drugs! It's just... if I need to try hard, I'll need to use something and-"

"Are you going to do exactly what Brenner did to us, is that it?" Kali questions me, irritated. "Are you going to get high, then sink into a bathtub and try to find Mike? Is he worth it?"

"Anything is worth it, I just want him to come home!" I use all the frustration I kept in the last few days to say that, so much so that Kali totally changes her expression. "Why is it so hard for you to understand that yes, I love Mike, even if you don't like him! And I would do anything for him as he would do for me!"

"Would he do it? Look, start considering that maybe he won't be back, okay?" _what?_ "That maybe he's under arrest, maybe they've locked him there. That it may be impossible to return to him because he will always be tied to that place and being with him will only compromise your entire life!"

I can't react immediately to everything she says to me. Each word was like a punch to me, fast, but painful. I may never be able to understand what goes on in her mind, or what she knows, or why she says those words.

I take the pills from my pocket and watch them in the palm of my hand. I remember when Brenner made us swallow these pills when we were kids and then took us to an isolation tank. The same thing he did to my mother, even when I was in her womb, probably what made me this way.

"Thanks for the help, sister." I throw the pills back at her and I don't expect her to tell me anything to leave the apartment, even though I still have no idea what to do.

**Day: 4**

I hear the guard opening the cell's grid and calling me out. To be honest, I still wonder how I got to this point.

It is the fourth day without contact with Mike and I spent a little more than a day in jail for scream at a policeman. Sharing the cell with another girl and not being able to find Mike on my own.

I find Lucas at the end of the corridor waiting for me and I ignore everything the guard is saying. In fact, I've ignored everything around me, I just want to get out of this fucking place as soon as possible.

Lucas's disapproving look is annoying too, so I don't give him much space to say anything until we're already in the car and he's driving, probably to his home. Max must know what happened because Lucas was the first person I called, so I think it'll kind of hard for them to leave me alone for the next few days.

"Sorry to take so long to get you out of there," Lucas tells me, but it wasn't his delay that bothered me, but being stuck and still not being able to find Mike. "I had to find a way... I tried to intimidate the policeman, but it didn't work at first. I had to call a colleague at the security office, I talked about the harassment and got you a release... How did that happen, El?"

"I went to get help because Mike is missing, in case you didn't notice." I regret saying it to him as soon as the word comes out of my mouth, so I lighten my tone as I explain what happened yesterday afternoon. "The guy looked at me and said: ' _your fiance is probably running away from the wedding, but we can get back at him by going to a motel and having sex'._ I should have...

"You broke his arm!" I thought Lucas would be upset with me, but he laughs a little and it even helps to alleviate the moment, but the local radio announcer informs that it is already 8 pm, December 29, 2008. Right now, I think we both miss Mike at the same time. He always imitates the boring little music from that radio station.

I miss being in the car with him, listening to him whisper the songs he likes, playing with his hair while he's driving, his hand on my leg, his smell...

In two days this year will end and the bad thought of starting and ending this 2008 without him destroys me. I allow myself to cry for the first time in the presence of someone. Although it seems like I've spent hours like this, I know it was only a few minutes, and when Lucas parks his car in his garage, he tells me something capable of relieving me at least a little for the first time in four days:

"I'm looking for him, El. I'm going to Hawkins tomorrow."

**Day: 5**

I saw Lucas leave the house towards Hawkins, but I didn't dare to face the day and I took another pill to sleep.

I know I should be grateful for the presence of Max, the children, Dustin and Will who, even without knowing what is really happening - since Max just said that Mike traveled to another state because of work and it was serious -, still they do their best to be close.

It's late afternoon when I wake up. This time I didn't feel sick, but I felt a little hand caress my hair and I make an effort to receive this affection.

"Hi, Anna," I say to the little girl next to me and I wonder if she was watching me sleep. "are you all right?"

"I think so. Will you be fine?" her innocent question manages to leave me in silence for a while. Luckily for me - or not - Lucas knocks on the open bedroom door, asking for permission to enter.

He says something in Anna's ear and she leaves the room smiling, leaving us alone. A terrible sense of panic seems so close to taking me completely because Lucas came here alone. It is already December 30, 2008.

"I couldn't get into the building," he tells me without looking directly at me. "I saw some soldiers, a couple of cars, some guys who looked like the CIA... I don't know what to do yet, but I don't have time. Can you try?"

**Day: 6**

**December 31, 2008, 8:12 am**

I have Lucas and Kali by my side and the hope of getting into that damn lab, even without knowing what and who is inside. The plan is to enter without being recognized with Kali's help and look for Mike in all possible places.

I looked for him, I spent almost the entire night looking, but I didn't find him. I've been trying not to think about how not being able to find him in the void can mean he's dead because it's exactly what happens when I try to look for my dad.

Kali is more nervous than I thought. Head down, quiet, suspicious. Lucas found her at the airport and brought her back. I don't know yet if there is something that only the two of them know and that can explain the reason for all this.

Even so, she does not have to struggle to help us because there is no one on the first floors of the laboratory, just the constant noise of a machine and I wonder if it is the same machine that they used to open the gate.

The gate... All these days I was so worried about Mike that I forgot about that special "door". When I asked Mike if he would enter that place, he swore that he wouldn't, but I don't rule out that possibility

When we get to the floor, I notice that Kali doesn't seem surprised to find everything isolated, which makes me suspect that maybe she has been here these days, but the certainty comes when she enters an area that looks like a control room. Lucas asks me to wait outside for a while before going with him, we don't know who's inside, after all.

"Why did you bring her here?" I hear a voice very similar to Liv's, but I can't confirm it. "That's all he didn't want!"

I plan on continuing to listen to the conversation, but I can see, for the first time, what must be the gate. There's a machine too, but it doesn't seem to have that much power anymore. I notice that there is a ladder that can give me access to the machine and the gate and I wonder if I should take this path.

"It doesn't matter now! What happened? Where is he?" I hear someone say that and I deduce that it is Lucas, which makes me understand that Mike is not in that room.

More than two people start arguing at the same time, but there is something that I can hear and hold in my mind: "he may be stuck there".  
I evaluate my options and the chances of someone being stuck and how this someone can be Mike, and by “there”, it means the place he once told me about. The other side.

I have a gun that Lucas gave me and I know how to use it because of my father. I know this floor because it is where I spent most of my childhood.  
What I don't have here is Mike with me. What I don't have here is time to wait for the discussion to end in that room, so I take a deep breath, grab the gun and go down the stairs as fast as I can because I know I need to get to the gate before Lucas sees me here.

I don't think much when I stand in front of the gate, I just walk through it with a single thought in mind: bring Mike back with me.


	40. Still his little girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very special chapter for me. I hope you like it. :)

****

**October 30, 1985. Hawkins, Indiana.**

"Dad?" I say even though I can't quite believe what I'm seeing. I wonder if this is another hallucination, but I left that place some time ago.

After finally getting out of that place, I found myself in the school bathroom and, since there was something normal in the air, I started looking for Mike again, with my mind, and managed to see him in an off-road car, with his face against the steering wheel and holding that picture of me he took when we traveled together. I stole a car and have been driving around town looking for it ever since.

When I saw those things crawling towards this store, I didn't think long before I came here and helped the people who were parking right outside. I just didn't think I'd find my _father_ here.

"El..." he recognizes me and looks at someone who is on the other side of the store and I follow his gaze until I see Mike too, lifting himself from the floor with a lot of effort, little blood drips from his temple.

"Mike?" I feel more lost now than before. I look back at my father and, for some reason, only now I realize that he is about twenty years younger than when he died. "What the fuck?"

They don't answer me right away, but the few lights on the market start to flash and I hear someone say, outside, that we need to get out now and my father - although I _know_ it isn't him -, pulls me by the arm, taking me out. I search for Mike just to see he's helping a boy to get up.

I am pushed into a car and everything happens so fast that I can barely register who is here with me, I just hear my father say that he will explain everything to me later. I even think about leaving, but I see that Mike is going to drive, so I remain quiet in the back seat.

I hear a boy complain that Mike needs to drive soon and he replies - _yells_ \- that he's already doing it. The boy in the front seat is identical to Lucas when he was a child. I also feel someone's eyes on me, so I turn around and see Dustin, a teenager version of him, and another Mike next to me in the back seat.

I don't know what to say because I can barely understand what's going on, but the teenager Mike next to me looks even more scared, clinging to a super com and holding Dustin's hand, who is now looking at me in surprise as well.

"Hi..." Dustin says to me. "Can I see your left wrist?"

I slowly show him my wrist and notice how confused he and the other Mike seem to be when they can't find what they're looking for in my skin. "You don't have the tattoo?" the other Mike asks me and it's scary to hear his voice. I look at my Mike, who is driving and he looks nervous, squeezing the steering wheel so hard that I have the impression that it could break at any moment. Lucas, on the other hand, just looks at me curiously.

"I've removed it," I confess to them. "I was a teenager and my father helped me. It was a number..."

"Eleven?" a teen version of Mike asks me and I nod. "El..."

I feel the other Mike wipe my face with shaking hands and I notice the details: his thin body, the funny hair he hated, the freckles on his face... all a little different from my Mike. Just the way he looks at me is the same.

He hugs me tightly, then tries to wipe the blood that ran from my nose, and I barely have time to answer his hug when I feel Dustin hug me too and Lucas manages to get out of the front seat and come back to participate in the hug that I don't understand, but I accept.

I try to look back at the search for the car my father had entered, but I can't find it. Only then I realize that they are ahead of us and Mike is following him somewhere I don't know, but I know I'll be safe.

**\---------**

The carpet on the floor seems so cozy and I believe it is capable of making anyone remember their childhood days. Unfortunately, I've remembered mine.

I have no idea why I try to memorize the carpet designs while I've just heard the most bizarre explanation possible of what the fuck is happening. Mike explained it to everyone: 2008, who we are, how he found Hopper, how they got here, how this is a parallel reality to which he and I lived, how there is also another El, which disappeared a couple of days ago.

I don't know what moved me the most: hearing he talking about everything he was hiding from me or that I may have "dreamed" of all this through the other El, who they are calling “yesterday-El”.

There are a lot of people in the house. People I know, people I don't know... my father - who is not really my father - but who at least looks at me, at least is by my side now, unlike Mike, my Mike, from the future. I think he only looked at me about three times since we met.

I also don't know if I want to see him. When he started explaining, I preferred to hide my face in my hands and focus on the damn carpet, but he's sitting on the floor, almost facing me, and I can't help noticing how nervous he is because he keeps moving on the engagement ring and her voice is shaky. Sometimes I think he is explaining what just happened to me. "I got here by accident", "I just wanted to help Hopper get back", "I don't know how I got in the upside-down".

"El," it's the first time he pronounces my name, but I can't look at him. "I saw you in the lab and... it was a trap, something made me see you hurt. I tried to get closer, but something attacked you, then it attacked me... I woke up in this upside-down world because Hopper had helped me. We thought the other gate we found would take us back to 2008... I've been here for a few hours and-"

"A few hours?" it irritates me a lot, more than I expected. I start to feel a rage for everything that is happening that I end up directing him, disproportionately. "You disappeared a week ago. I looked for you for a week, Mike!"

For the first time since I got here, I really look at him. Mike is clearly exhausted. His clothes are damp, and so is his hair. He has a bruise on his temple and one side of his face is covered with blood, which has run down his neck. Under normal conditions, I would not hesitate to take care of him, but I can barely spend more than three seconds looking at his face.

Yesterday-Mike comes back from the kitchen with a plate full of waffles just for me. I look at him, thankful, but I don't know if I can manage to eat anything right now. I thank him anyway and I still have time to see “tomorrow-Mike”, as they call him, look at the younger version of himself before getting up angrily and leaving the room, going up the stairs. No one questions his attitude, but it pisses me off. The only thing that keeps me in the room is Joyce's question:

"What were those things on the market? I've never seen anything like it..."

"Me neither." my father, who is not my father, says to Joyce. "Mike told me that Liv said something about a prism and DNA..."

"Liv? His ex-wife knew about you, but I didn't?" my father even tries to explain it to me, but is interrupted.

"Ex-wife?" Lucas, Dustin, Max and Mike ask me, all at the same time.

"Very complicated and has nothing to do with your life, so forget it!" he even gets up to talk to the four teenagers, but not only are they surprised to learn that was Mike married to someone else. From what I understand here, yesterday-Mike and El are dating each other and probably believe it will be like this forever. I hope so. At least one version of us can still work. "El, can we talk? Please..."

I am so weak, confused and helpless that my father - Hopper - needs to guide me to an empty place in the house and I feel everything fall apart in me when I realize that I am alone with him.

I feel like everything has been taken away from me at once. Everything I had, everything I knew and loved. And then I was thrown into an unknown house that forces me to think about everything I have already lost, everything I wanted to have, everything I wanted to forget... I can barely look at him, I just try to hide my face in my hands but everything hurts so much inside me that I can't hide what I'm feeling.

I find myself sitting on the floor, crying, but he gives me such a tight hug as if he were able to extract from me all this agony that I have been feeling for the past week. I hug him back, choosing to forget that he is not my real father, but I have been without my father for five years. I would accept anything.

His embrace is the same... I can still feel protected by him, the affection he felt for me, the friendship we had, the trust we shared.

I remember when he asked me if I would like to have him as a father and he had to explain to me what it meant. That day I understood that what Brenner was for me, but I didn't feel angry, I couldn't. My mind could only register that _Hopper_ was my real father.

"I'm so happy to meet you." my father says while looking me in the eyes and trying to wipe my face with his hands. "I thought I didn't want to. I was scared and... it's been a while since I felt distant from my El because she is growing, changing... I wanted to stop time, you know? So that she would still be my little girl."

What he says, the way he does, the look in his eyes, his voice... I've experienced it, years and years ago, when I fell in love with an idiot high school boy and he treated me badly. My dad talked to me about how he never wanted me to deal with the bad things in the world, how he wanted me to be his little girl forever.

"But Mike told me about you," he continues. "what you do, your work, your dance, your love for your friends' children. He told me who you are. I've seen the pictures, lots of beautiful pictures that you take with your analog cameras and you seem to like it so much... When I saw you in that market, for some reason, I lost the fear of meeting you. I know everything must be confusing for you now, I felt confused when Mike found me. I wish I could get you out of this mess... But I need you to know that, even though I'm not your real father, even though you're not my El, from this time, I love you, just as I love her. I'll need to go out and look for her, deal with some crazy monsters... But when I get back, with my El, I want to see you and take you home. I want you to be okay, to be happy."

"I can fight." as soon as I finish speaking, he strangely looks at me and cries for the first time since we met. I don't understand why, but I let him take his time to speak again.

"I know, better than any of us." this time, I'm the one who wipes his tears. "I need you safe now, okay?"

"Let me search for her. I can do it."

"I know you can, El." He takes my hand and I look at his face for a while. I still can't understand how Hopper can be but not be my father. "Thank you."

"Can you stay with me while I... I don't know if I want to do this with everyone looking at me outside. I feel weird."

"Yes, sure. Sure, kid." he kisses my forehead, just like my father did. "Do you want me to call Mike? Your Mike."

"I don't know if he's mine anymore, so no..." I still haven't thought about Mike, about what he did, about how he just left the room and left me alone. "I don't want to talk to him right now."

"Okay... But don't be so mad, he didn't mean to hurt your feelings. He believed this was the best way to protect you from everything. And I agreed with him."

I try to absorb what he told me, but I think I'm still too angry with Mike to be able to reflect. Maybe not talking to him now is the best thing I can do.

Hopper is still holding my hand, watching my engagement ring. I also hold his hand while I think of everything I heard... everything that seemed so much to come from my real father and everything I heard from this Hopper.

Later, after staying like this for what feels like a long moment and think so much about what he said to me, I just let the words out of my mouth:

"I love you too." He looks surprised at me, but I just hold his hand tighter. "Even if you're not him... Thank you for loving me too, for being proud of me. I'm like this because of you... him... I don't know. I'm grateful that he chose me. I'm sure she feels this way too."

I have your tight hug as an answer and I enjoy this closeness as much as I can, while I still don't need to use my “powers” again. At least now I can use them for something good.

I just hope I can find her.


	41. Be honest, Mike Wheeler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's crying hours...

I take the black fabric off my face again. It is the third time that I have tried to find her, but there is nothing in the void, not even a clue that I can follow. A stack of tissues formed beside me, all with blood, as I searched for El. I am using my “powers” so much that I barely recognize myself. I feel weak too, which must have been very clear to my father - yesterday-Hopper - because he insists that I stop and get some rest.

I choose to listen to his advice and this is why now I am in the Wheelers' kitchen, eating a pile of eggos with whipped cream, chocolate and strawberries, even after having dined the roast beef that Karen Wheeler had made the day before and decided to warm up so that everyone could eat tonight. Interestingly, yesterday-Mike doesn't like tomorrow-Mike's favorite food. I wonder if he'll like it a few years from now.

"Okay, I know I shouldn't be bothering you for a thousand reasons," Max says as he pushes yesterday-Mike just to sit next to me. I smile at this because it is something that tomorrow-Max would do. "But I need to know a few things: are we friends in your time?"

"Yes," I answer and she seems extremely pleased to hear that. "My Max is a doctor, we studied at the same college and she introduced me to Mike... She is also married to Lucas Sinclair and, together, you have two daughters: Karen and Anna. We always say that they are the equivalent of two Ericas, child versions."

"What?!" Max and Lucas talk at the same time and I find it strange until I see Dustin and Mike laughing at them.

"Hey, what happened in my reality does not mean it will happen here too. They are alternative realities, a lot of things are different, but the best person to explain this to you is Mike. The other Mike..."

"I don't know, he's an asshole!" Dustin speaks and I realize that he is very sincere on his part, so much that the others agree with him. "He didn't want us to know who he is, but we stole his wallet and saw the documents... and your photo. He was very angry."

"Well, I think some things don't change much between realities," Max says as he picks up the empty plate from the table and puts it in the sink. "Our Mike is also quite annoying, but we tolerate him because of El."

"As if you were perfect, Max." I think this is the first time I've heard yesterday-Mike say something.

After his comment, Lucas starts to defend his then-girlfriend - something I discovered a few minutes ago too - and the four begin to argue a little, which reminds me that teenagers are a pain sometimes... or I'm just too exhausted. Luckily, Karen Wheeler appears to end their argument:

"Hey, what is that?! Leave her alone for at least a few minutes!" they all shut up immediately when they heard the lady of the house. "El, how are you?"

I say yes with my head and, to my surprise, she comes over to kiss me on the cheek and fix my hair.

"I think Nancy's clothes will fit you, so I'll get you clothed and a towel and leave it in the bathroom, okay? A bath will help you relax a little." Karen tells me and I smile at her in thanks, but I feel a little frustrated to see her walk away and go to a kitchen cupboard and help herself to a glass of wine soon after. Immediately I make a connection with tomorrow-Karen Wheeler and look at yesterday-Mike, sitting next to me. He watches his mother for a while, but looks away and decides to make invisible drawings on the table with his fingers.

"You really should go and take a shower, there's an incredible bathtub upstairs..." Dustin tells me before winking at me and dragging Max and Lucas into the room with him and everyone who is there seems to be quiet... Nancy and Robin try to distract Holly, the sister Mike doesn't have in our world, while Hop and Joyce talk in the corner and constantly look out the window at the street.

After a while, I find myself alone in the kitchen with the yesterday-Mike and I notice a few things about him: the tired look, the messy hair, the long thin fingers, the freckles on his face, the stare on the super com, the anxiety of not knowing where and how the person he loves is. I see myself on him.

"How is she?" I ask him and see a shy smile form on his face... the same smile as my tomorrow-Mike.

"Bitching," the way he says it sounds like a secret between them. "but very kind. She listens and understands everyone, puts others' lives first... I think it's risky. You seem to be like her. I mean, you came here for him. Very dangerous."

"Love makes us crazy." we both smile at this. "And he would do the same if it was the other way around. I just don't understand why he lied to me, I wouldn't have done that. Now everything is weird." 

"Maybe he wanted to protect you. I mean, the gate is in the lab and Hopper here is not what you knew, so... maybe he wanted to keep you from bad memories."

"You do this for El? Keep away the bad memories, I mean."

"Yes! I always look for something new for her to discover and learn... I was helping her with her studies, but she is incredibly smart, she doesn't even need my help!"

I keep imagining the two studying together, going to the movies, to the mall, watching cartoons on TV... they probably trust each other a lot. I hope I don't lose it with my Mike.

"El?" yesterday-Mike calls me again. "You talked about ex-wife... I think it's strange because I honestly don't see myself with someone else and... I know it's ridiculous and I'm probably being childish, but-"

"Maybe you will be forever. What happened to me doesn't mean it's going to happen to her, or you... Mike and I went through a very difficult time and parted ways, but it might not have happened if we had been honest with ourselves and with each other. Sometimes I regret it, sometimes I think it was good for both of us..." He still seems so confused by my speech. "He moved, found a good person, got married, but it didn't work out because they didn't love each other. I stayed in my city, I went through some bad things, I had a thing with other men, but I didn't like them. The point is that Mike and I try to find each other in other people, which just made us unhappy."

"But you still liked each other? Do you still like each other?" Mike asks me a little embarrassed and I realize how he preferred to use the term “like” instead of loving. I wonder if he loves yesterday-El, if he knows it, if he has already told her.

"You never stop loving a person, so yes. We do love each other." he touches the ring on my finger and I decide to remove the jewel and give it to him so he can see better. I watch as he looks carefully at all the details on the ring in awe. "Do you love your El?"

"Yes, I do. Very much." His voice is so low as if he were telling me a secret. "She loves me too, she even said it first. My dad says I shouldn't get too attached, but I don't want to hear his advice. The last thing I want is to live my parents' lives."

"I know." I think I say that thinking more about Mike from the future. He always told me that he didn't want to be like his father, that he didn't want us to be like his parents. "It's okay to get attached, Mike, but you can't be dependent on each other. Dependence is always bad... Be honest with her, with yourself. Be honest about everything, especially about how you feel. Don't ever lie. Lies destroy the trust you have built together and it hurts a lot. We never expect to be hurt by the one we love, so when it happens, it is a thousand times worse. Be honest, Mike."

Saying all this to him was like taking something off my chest, probably because of what Mike did to me, all the things he hid from me, hurt me a lot more than if it had been done by someone else, anyone. But he is the person I trust most - or did - in my time. Without that, I'm not sure how to move on.

Yesterday-Mike takes my hand carefully and puts the ring back on my finger before smiling shyly: "I'll. Promise." I put a lock of hair behind his ear and watch when he goes back to the super com... I wonder why he has this radio around all the time.

"Are you waiting for someone's message?"

"Yes... Hopper had to hide El for 353 days, but I thought she was dead. We all did, actually. I insisted on talking to her on the super com, I don't know what made me hope, but then I knew she was fine and listened to me, she just couldn't talk to me. I think I'm waiting for her to answer me this time."

_She just couldn't talk to me._

I keep that phrase in my mind for a while... maybe El is in a place where I can't see her, maybe she can't even speak. An idea comes to mind, and even if it sounds scary to me to do what I'm thinking, it may be the only chance to find it.

"Dustin told me there is a bathtub upstairs... I think I will need something more to be able to find El, something like-"

"Sensory deprivation? In the bathtub?" He asks me agitated and in a loud enough voice to get the attention of Joyce and Hopper, who comes to us both quickly.

"Yes. Maybe I can do it this time if I'm in the bath. Mike, the other Mike, can help with things, he's a physicist and-"

"We've done a pool for El before." Joyce interrupts me and I'm surprised to learn that. "When she helped us find Will. It can work... it can work!"

Joyce comes to me and gives me a big hug and I realize that she is holding on to that idea with such a certainty that it will work that makes me believe that _I will_ make it.

"Thank you!" she says as soon as she breaks our hug. "Hop and I can get things done fast..."

"What would we need? Isn't it dangerous to go outside?" I ask honestly because I have no idea what would be needed.

"Basically, we will need a lot of salt and keep the water at the right temperature." Hop says before approaching and kissing my forehead, just like my dad did. "Thank you! We will get what we need, in the meantime, you can go up, get some more rest... Thank you, El."

"You're welcome." I reply a little embarrassed because they make me go up the stairs until they convince me to go take a shower and rest.

I think the rest will help me. When Brenner put me in that tank, I always spent at least a whole day without forcing my brain to do absurd things, so I follow what they asked of me and try not to feel so nervous about what I'm about to do.

**\--------**

As soon as I leave the bathroom and enter the room, I see Mike - my Mike - sitting on the floor, with the clothes he borrowed from someone, scribbling a lot of things in a notebook that must belong to yesterday-Mike.

I can't help thinking about the times when we've found ourselves in a similar situation: one of us just got out of the shower and finds the other in the room. It was never uncomfortable for me or him to change in front of the other, but now it seems so strange. Perhaps because it is Mike's room from the past, decorated with Star Wars dolls, books, games and photographs.

When he looks at me, I realize the effort he makes to focus on my face and I feel even a little better knowing that he wanted to look at my body... or maybe I'm going crazy, which is totally possible.

"You can stay!" I say in a hurry as soon as I realize he's going to get up. "I need to talk to you."

"Okay." His voice is so low and insecure that it makes me think about what I should or shouldn't say. "I heard you were down there for a long time."

"Yes, but I can't find her... there's nothing there." I answer and I don't know how I feel because he chose to talk about what is happening now, here in 1985. "I keep wondering why she wanted to recover these powers. I mean... I would give anything to not have it."

"I know... but she was found by the boys and helped save Will, so she must be like their Jean Gray." Mike even smiles weakly and I remember when he used to call me Jean Gray.

"Yeah, maybe..." We were in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, until he started to say something he just remembered. "El, after seeing you in the lab in 2008, something pushed me against the wall and I blacked out for a while. I woke up in a place that looks a lot like the void, from what you already told me."

"There was water on the floor?" I ask.

"Yes. Nothing more than that. I called you a few times, then I found her, or she found me... She was wearing hospital clothes and had a bruise on her face. She just asked me to wake up, she knew my name too. I haven't said anything yet because I thought it might cause unnecessary panic, but I don't think she's in the hospital."

"Is the lab closed here?" I feel distressed to think about that place. "That's what they said, at least, right?"

"Apparently, yes. El, maybe we're looking for the wrong person. She ran away with Kali, maybe they are together. I can look for her and-"

"No, no one will leave this house. I'll use your-his mother's bathtub."

"El," he strangely looks at me. "they have already left. We need pounds of salt to make you float on it. Joyce and Hopper went out while you showered, said they created an isolation pool before, so they know where to find the stuff."

I am a little embarrassed to learn that they left. I feel nervous too, being out there is a lot riskier than staying here. I wish I had found the other El, at least we would go out just once to pick her up.

Mike refocuses on what he's writing in the notebook, and from what I see, it looks like calculations. I let go of the air that I didn't even know I was holding and go to the opposite side of the room and I'm about to finish getting ready when I remember something important.

"I saw you too, when I crossed the gate." He looks back at me as soon as I speak, a little surprised. I finish putting on Nancy's shirt that Karen gave me and continue the conversation. "I called you, but "you" kept staring at me. That's when I realized it wasn't really you... the other one wasn't wearing the blue bracelet we both have. And you have a scar on your nose, he didn't."

"I have?" he looks confused and touches his nose until he remembers how he got that mark. That's when he and a guy at work argued and the idiot broke his nose.

"Yes, but it is very small." I don't understand why he looks so confused or even surprised by that, I always notice everything about him. "Why did we see each other in that place, Mike? My dad - Hopper - said that you and Liv were analyzing something about DNA..."

"Owens and Liv, actually. It's a theory... the place is like a prism that refracts the DNA of every live being, so things get mixed up. As we are not from there, somehow, they copied us. Still, I saw you before you went there, so they can't have your DNA... but something made me see you." He gets up and stands with his back to the dresser, near the door, but facing me. "That's why I'm here, El. I didn't plan this, I just wanted to help him to get back."

His last sentence makes me think about everything I have felt in the past few weeks, seeing him increasingly distant from me, coming home later, asking me strange questions about how I would react seeing "another Mike", what I would do if something bad happened to him and then he spent a whole week without news and trying to chase away the idea Kali made me think about, the idea that he would be dead.

Despite being extremely upset, disappointed, hurt and any other adjective in the world, I don't want to fight with him. Not here, not now... never, really. I remember the last fight we had and how I used this thing on me against him, how I said horrible things. I don't want that to happen again, so I just say the basics.

"I know you didn't want to be here, I understood that. But you still hid everything that was happening from me, you lied. I am-" I need to hold on and take a deep breath before I speak again. "I am very disappointed with you. Anyone could have done what you did to me and I don't think I would feel so bad, because you would be on my side, right? But if you hurt me like that, then who's on my side, Mike?"

"I'm sorry, El." he says looking into my eyes and I know he's being sincere. I can feel it from here.

"I know, but I don't want to think about it now-"

"I'll understand if you want to leave me, if you want to end everything." this time I can see something that I didn't think I would see in him... it's almost as if he was resigned to a decision I didn't even make. "I'm sorry, El. For everything that happened because of me, for everything you've been through since I left and since I came back. I love you, so I will understand. _I understand._ I think there will always be a part of you with me and I will be grateful for that." 

"That's not my decision, Mike."

"Not yet. It will be when you come back and think about everything."

"Maybe we can decide when we get back. You and me."

"Yeah..." He spends a few seconds holding the doorknob but doesn't open it, he just turns and looks at me again while leaning his back against the door. "After thinking about everything, if you still find some empty space, whatever it may be, can it be mine? It can be anything, I just want to be a part of your life, even as a friend. I ask because I love to hear your voice when you're excited or when you describe something good and I don't want to loose it."

"Is this what you want? Break up?" I say right after I go to him and hug him and he corresponds. I missed being with him so much and I hate that we are so close physically at a time like this.

"It's never what I want. I'm just making things easier for both of us." I feel Mike move away from my embrace and I try to hold him a little longer. He holds my face in his hands and kisses my forehead, but it is not enough for me, nor is it acceptable, because it is goodbye and I don't want him to say goodbye to me.

I don't let him get away from me. I hold his face, as he held mine before, and I do what I should have done since I found him here. He doesn't return the kiss in the first second, as if he's still trying to understand my reaction.

In the six days that I was without him, I thought how good it would be to kiss him again, smell him, hug him... but it is so different than I imagined. And even when he returns the kiss and I finally feel his lips match mine, even when his tongue touches mine, I can also taste our tears that must have mixed at some point.

And amid the confusion that dwelled in my mind, I try - through the kiss - to make him understand that I don't want to say goodbye, that I can forgive him for hiding Hopper from me... But some lucid part of me can still understand why I cannot make him understand. It's that invisible wall that he always tells me he created around himself when he was a teenager, just so that no one could see him and, consequently, he felt safer, even if he was alone

He built that wall again because he feels guilty. Breaking up with me is the punishment he chose to give himself. Nothing I say will do any good if he doesn't forgive himself.

I barely have time to absorb what I realized and try to enjoy this moment with him because, suddenly, I no longer feel his lips on mine. He walks away and leaves the room, probably going to find someone to organize things for the bath.

I never felt so alone as I do now.


	42. The vanish of El Hopper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yall! Long time, no see. 
> 
> Please, this chapter has some graphic stuff and mentions suicide, depression... it's really dark. If it's not your cup of tea, PLEASE, skip the last part. I won't be mad, promise. :)

Waiting for Hopper and Joyce to come back reminded me of the night I spent in jail, the terrible feeling of helplessness mixed with the anxiety that makes my leg sway constantly.

I also think of Mike, who left the room a few minutes ago, but he hasn't come back yet and I can't figure out where we are in our relationship. The thought of leaving him hasn't even crossed my mind since I found him here, much less when I discovered everything he was hiding from me. I won't deny my disappointment and hurt, but I don't want to break up with him.

I think about the time I am here. The clock on yesterday-Mike's nightstand from the past reads 4:37 am, which means it will soon be dawn and Mike will complete an entire night at Hawkins. If a few hours here meant practically a week in 2008, I wonder how much time has passed since I got here in 1985.

I think of Lucas in that lab. He wanted to help me find answers, now he barely knows where Mike and I are. I think of Max, who was Mike's accomplice in the whole lie, but probably doesn't know that he would try to bring Hopper back. I think of Will and Dustin who have no idea what's going on unless Lucas and Max have told them.

I think of Karen Wheeler, who is ready to leave Ted and live in Chicago. Nancy is coming back from Dublin to support her mother, all because they want to be closer to Mike and me, especially after our wedding.

The wedding. There are still, considering the time in 2008, 22 days. I start to think that everything is going to go wrong, that this wedding is not going to happen anymore until I hear the door open again and the relief of knowing that it is Mike - my Mike, from the future - who has returned to the room. Sometimes I feel so insecure here, being with people that I don't really know. At least having Mike around helps me to feel less out of place. I wonder if he felt that way too when he arrived.

He takes a deep breath before entering the room and I see him take a book from the dresser and, even before he opens the door again to leave, I say the first thing that comes to mind to get his attention:

"I was arrested." Mike immediately leaves the door and comes to me, with a surprised expression. "I broke a policeman's arm..."

"What?!" the way he says it, so shocked and indignant, makes me feel a little familiar because that's exactly how I imagined he would react. "El, my... Why?"

"I went to a police station to ask for help from the police to find you, I explained that you, my fiancé," I emphasize this part because I want him to remember that "had made a trip to work, but had not returned and did not answer my calls. The policeman who was there laughed at me and said that you were "running away from the engagement and fucking some prostitute on the road", his words, not mine."

"What?!" that expression of shock and indignation returns. "I'm not running away from home-I didn't cheat on you, I don't-"

"I know!" Mike is so red and nervous that it makes me wonder how he would react if he were around that guy. "He said that and I was very nervous. After that, he told me that we could go to a motel and get back at you-"

"What?!" it is the third time in a row that he tells me the same thing. "I'll-El-who is this guy? I'll fucking kill him!"

"I already broke his arm." I even try to say it more funnily, but he seems _really_ nervous about what happened. "Mike... sorry, I don't even know why I mentioned it and... I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Why do you apologize to me? You did nothing wrong. Maybe you should have broken something else but you shouldn't apologize, especially to me..." he is still angry, but at least he can speak without hitting. "I wasn't running away from you and I never cheated on you and I know you know that, but it's annoying and... disgusting! God, I would do anything so none of this was happening, anything to be at home choosing the flavor of our wedding cake..."

Mike stops talking as if he has noticed something that probably made him feel sad because he looks at nothing for a while. I wonder if he's thinking the same thing as me... if he would give anything to be together, at home, so why did you tell me all that earlier? I also don't know what makes me ask him the next question.

"Then why did you break up with me?" He looks at me for a millisecond before lowering his head and facing the floor, but I can see that he uses his thumb to touch the engagement ring restlessly. I barely realize that I'm doing the same thing as him.

"I don't know." His voice is so low that I can barely hear it, but I don't care much because he approaches me slowly and sits next to me, on the floor, so close that our arms touch and I feel that comfortable warmth that appears every time that we touch. I hope he feels the same way I do.

In the few seconds in silence, I keep thinking about a thousand and one things I could do now, like holding his hand, hugging him, fixing his messy hair, making a decent bandage on the bruise that is still exposed on his temple, but I can't choose something to do. I'm confused and he speaks again:

"I think that's the problem, I don't know what to do, much less what I'm doing. I have no control over anything else and I'm afraid you will get hurt because of me." Mike sighs loudly as soon as he finishes speaking. "Since I came back, I have only disappointed you..."

"Don't say that, Mike."

"I don't want to lose you, El. I'm afraid something bad will happen. I wonder how much you needed to use your powers to get here, to kill those things in the store, and find me. I saw the napkins with blood, El, the ones you used while looking for her. You are not a machine, you never used your skills like that... I'm nervous, El. And afraid... I can't lose you like that."

I know what he means and I am also afraid of not getting it, I am also afraid of losing him to some of those monsters that we met along the way. The idea of losing Mike forever scares me so much that I cling to him so hard, but he clings to me as well.

"Do not leave me alone." I ask and feel his embrace tighten before he moves away from my face and looks me in the eyes.

"Never." I'm almost sure Mike is going to kiss me, but someone opens the door suddenly, making him walk away.

It's Dustin, looking agitated and breathless, which makes me think he came running over here.

"They are here!"

**\--------**

Hopper and Joyce from the past arrived with several kilos of salt and I have no idea where they got it, I just hear almost all of them say, at different times, that they have been through something like this.

Tomorrow-Mike filled the ridiculously large bathtub with water and took the temperature with Nancy and Robin. Lucas, Dustin and the other Mike added salt and Joyce used eggs to test whether it floated or not. Everyone seems very experienced in that.

Karen Wheeler asked for a break and went to sleep with Holly. She is a beautiful little girl, very much like her mother, but her frightened look broke my heart. They don't know how safe in the hospital Ted Wheeler or Steve Harrington, one of the boys' friends that I don't know in my reality, are.

Hopper is pacing around. I notice how he walks and runs his hand through his hair constantly. He tried to call Sam Owens from this reality, but the phone has no line. He also said that it is risky to attract their attention while I am here.

But now I am the one who is too anxious, even trying to control myself. I asked to be alone with tomorrow-Mike because I didn't feel comfortable with just my underwear in front of others and I really need the feeling of security that only he can give me.

"You do not have to do this," Mike tells me while giving me the swimming goggles that the boys covered with tape. "It's too risky for you... We can find her in another way."

"I'll be fine, Mike. It's just a place in my mind, nothing can hurt me there." he doesn't seem very convinced, but don't do anything else.

Despite understanding his concern and also being nervous, I know I need to do this. What's the use of being here and not helping to find the other El? I was told that she has done a lot for them, why couldn't I do the same?

I take a deep breath before I get into the tub and put on my glasses. I can float without any difficulty and the water temperature is surprisingly pleasant. I thought I would feel bad as soon as my skin touched the water, but it feels different from the isolation tank that Brenner put me in when I was a kid.

"I'm here. Get out of there if something happens." I hear Mike's voice before the terrible silence that comes right after. This time, I didn't need much to join the void.

Everything is dark and cold, as always. I don't see anything as soon as I arrive, but I keep looking for any signs. At each step, waves in the small pool of water that exists in this place appears as I face my own reflection.

I keep walking for what seems like long minutes until I see a door like those in Hawkins' lab. I am very hesitant to open it because I have the feeling that I will be there when I cross and I am afraid of what I can find here. Meanwhile, that bizarre sound of a ferocious animal is present, but very far from me. I look around, but I see nothing.

I don't have much choice here if I want to find El, so I open the door. There is nothing on the other side, for a change, and I feel a mixture of relief and fear at the same time. I would love to meet you as soon as possible so I can get out of here.

I hear a low sound, not so far away, but also not so close to me. Something is like a cry echoing out of nowhere. I try to follow the sound, but sometimes it feels like it's coming from all sides. Until I see a room not that far away. I walk over to him slowly and realize what it is.

When I lived in the laboratory, Brenner sometimes took me to a room with a large table and a glass wall. He watched me through that wall, saw me smash soda cans, saw me cry and beg him not to make me kill some helpless little animal, saw me grow and have more and more control over my abilities. And the more control, the more strength I had, the more deteriorated I felt.

Only this time, I'm the one watching.

There is nothing in the room and I struggle to have the courage to open the door. When I do, I hear that little cry again. I follow the noise with my eyes until I find who I was looking for.

El - the other El - is huddled on the floor, in hospital clothes a little bloody. I can't spend a lot of time looking at it, so I deviate a bit to try to do those breathing exercises that help me focus better, but I don't know if it will work this time.

The room is dirty as if no one has used it for some time. I remember Hopper and Joyce told me that Hawkins 'lab was closed in 1984 by the military... judging by the state of the place where I am - we are -, I can almost certainly say that El is in Hawkins' lab. But why did she come here?

"Please..." it is impossible not to recognize the voice... my voice. "I already said that I can not do it anymore."

She doesn't say that to me, but to someone who must be in the room with her and I can't see it. I notice that she appears afraid of whoever or what is present. I hear her repeat that she "can't do it anymore" and that "she doesn't have her powers" sometimes, but it seems to be useless.

Before asking myself if she can feel my presence, she looks at me for less than a second before disguising it and looking at the opposite side of me. I want her to see me, to know that someone is going to get her out of here, but I hear that voice behind me and my reaction is so urgent and desperate that I fall to the ground. That's when I can see him.

He can see me, or maybe he can feel my presence. His eerily calm stance, his white hair, the black jacket he used to wear all the time. It's like Brenner hasn't aged a day since I last saw him.

"Eleven," his voice is firm and I can't tell if he's talking to me or her. "of course you still have your powers. They are motivated by your feelings."

I clearly remember the day he said that to me. I was 10 and he had locked me in that dark room for the third time that week. I was shaking and crying with fear, but I could only hear his voice coming from a speaker attached to the wall of the darkroom. "You always look stronger when you're scared, Eleven," he used to tell me.

"You still can." I hear Brenner say again to El from the past and I feel so desperate that I don't know what to do. I can't stop looking at him, I can't get up off the floor, I can't look at her, I can't go back. It's like he has the power to paralyze me. "You just did. And it's amazing how you two seem to be so scared right now."

I notice that half of his face is deformed as if he had been in a serious accident. Well, he should be dead, from what they told me. That's what everyone believes, after all.

I try to get out of here and back, but I can't. My breathing quickens with each step he takes towards me and I crawl - in fear - to try to keep myself away from him.

"I don't understand why you're afraid of me, Eleven." he always says that name as if it were a way to remind me who I was. "It's me, your father. Brenner. It is not time to be afraid. Save it for later. We are together now, the three of us."

"Mike!" I don't even know why I call for him while I'm here, he can't hear me. "Please don't..."

"Maybe four if Eight still wants us around." his smile makes me want to throw up.

Suddenly, I feel that the ground has opened up and I sank into that layer of water that seemed at first. I sank and now I have the feeling that something is pulling me. The last thing I can see is Brenner smiling at me while the other El tried to bring me back.

**\--------**

I feel someone's hands touching me, but I still can't see anything. I know I'm back, but it's like he's still close to me. I can't breathe well either, something is hurting me inside. Suddenly, I can see and the first person I see is Mike. He approaches me, tries to hug me, but I can't respond.

I feel dirty. There is something about me that makes me want to rip my skin off. Mike says a few things, but I can only hear his voice. You are afraid, Eleven. I hadn't heard that name for so many years.

Mike holds me tightly, pulling me out of the tub, but everything looks blurry to me. I don't know if he's taking me somewhere, I can't understand what he says, I don't see things well. I just know that I feel like I'm still in that bathtub, sinking. I feel Brenner look at me.

The scars on my body seem to burn. All of them, all the damn scars I got while I was locked in that hell: one on the back of my neck, which came after one of those disgusting men hit me and made me fall on my back on a table; one on my forehead, which I got when one of them came into my room one night and I knew - even without understanding - that he would hurt me, so I used my power and he also hit me; one in my pelvis, when they decided to change my body and take away the chance to decide whether to be a mother or not. There are so many others, in different places, some that I should not even remember how I did it.

The next thing I know is that a lot of water washes my body, which distracts me from the burning sensation in my scars, but it doesn’t keep me from that horrible thought I had that night I called Mike because I wanted to hear his voice for the last time before being gone.

I wanted to. I didn't have Mike with me anymore, I didn't have my dad, my friends... I want to be gone now. He's alive, he knows about me.

I start to scratch my wrists in an attempt to make it all go away, but Mike holds my two wrists so tightly that I can barely move my arms. 

Unfortunately, I realize that I also scratched him at some point and there is a small bruise on his hand and the water takes away the little blood that came from the wound. That's when I start to notice things around me.

"Stop banging the fucking door!" Mike's voice is so full of anger when he yells at someone outside that I barely recognize him.

I hurt him. I got hurt too. I barely noticed that he took me out of the bathtub and brought me to the bathroom stall.

The shower is on and we are sitting on the floor. He hugs me sideways, still holding my hands tightly. I am between his legs and he whispers some things in my ear and I try with all the strength that I have left to make his voice fill my mind.

"It's okay, it's over. I am here with you, my love. Please listen to me. Breathe with me, El."

I do as he asks and I follow his heavy breathing for some time. I rest my head on his chest and hear his heartbeat faster, so different from the sweet, calm voice he uses to talk to me.

I don't know how long it took, but I manage to get back for good. I can understand that I'm not in that place, that Mike is with me, that I'm fine, for now. He turns off the shower, but he is still hugging me, and while I have him around, I feel like I can talk about what I saw.

"He is alive. She is alive. They're in the lab."

Mike hugs me tighter before talking to me again:

"He won't find you, El." I feel his hands go over my face, pulling out the hair that was spread out. "I will end this."

"No-" I can barely finish speaking because he interrupts me to say something that scares me. His voice is so deep steady when he speaks again: 

"I'll end him tonight."


	43. Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeey guys. Long time, no see.

__

_Whiskey helps to relax the mind after a hard day. It's the drink of great men, Michael. The classic men._

I remember when my father explained to me why he was drinking whiskey at 10 pm on a Saturday at home. I never liked the smell, but the drink was like a mystery to me, an amber liquid full of meaning, symbolism, and status. Classic men's drink. My mother drank until she died on the sofa. I don't know what class or feeling of rest she was looking for while drinking.

I think about it as I watch the amber liquid in the simple glass I found in the cupboard. It looks oily, dense, bitter, strong ... all this is confirmed when I turn the glass. And even with the burning sensation in my throat, I pour myself another shot and drink, without thinking too much about what I'm doing. I just want to distract myself a little for a few seconds, to find the relief that my parents said they felt when alcohol was incorporated. I just want to be taken to some good memory before I go after him.

The first image that comes to mind is a memory, El and I at the cafeteria near the college, the first time we went out together. Then I remember when we were having a milkshake in Chicago. I asked her to date that day.

I want to stay in that memory for longer, but my brain brings me back to the image of El from the past asking me to wake up and it makes me open my eyes again and go back to the bottle next to me.

"Ah, shit..." I whisper to myself as I pour myself another dose, the last. The taste is no longer bitter and the burning seems to have stopped.  
The only time I saw Martin Brenner's face was through a photograph in an old newspaper. I looked for him and MK Ultra when El told me about what happened to her in that lab. Brenner was young and superb looking and I doubt anyone could look at him and find him a lunatic killer.

I promised El that I would finish him off today and I wonder how I will do that, because becoming a murderer is the last thing I want in my life, but I don't know if I will be able to control my anger when I find him. Not having to confront him was one of the great privileges that Hopper gave us in my reality.

"I knew you were my son as soon as we met." I almost drop the glass I was holding when I hear my mo- _Karen's_ voice in the kitchen. I thought she was sleeping with Holly. "You called me mom..."

"Did I?" I don't even know why I asked that question if I already know the answer. "I didn't want them to know about me."

"I know because you are not my son, aren't you? Is there another Karen over there?" She asks as she sits on the kitchen counter, facing me. I nod, answering her question. "How is she?"

"Older." I reply blandly and realize that I don't want her to know about the other Karen. "I... We are not close. I'm kind of distant, so..."

I don't know if it's because of the whiskey, but I feel strange when I see Karen still so young, still healthy, in this house... It makes me think that I barely know what my real mother is like in 2008.

"I wanted us to be close. Me and him, you and her. It is something I regret here and I wish it would be different there in the future. I mean, my kids are everything to me - and you'll understand that when you become a father, I'm sure - but... I hardly knew about Nancy, where she was all this time, the same about Mike. The girl, El, stayed here for a week and I barely noticed. Since the beginning of the summer, Mike has been getting more and more distant, always going to see a girl and I never realized it was her. I never saw her in person. My kids are everything to me and it's like we're strangers. Why?"

I know I don't need to answer that question and I feel relieved by that because I don't know the answer either. I moved away from my mother because of my father, because of her inertia, because of the stupid decisions I made years ago. There is so much that I regret.

"Maybe, when all this is over, you can..." I don't even know why I started talking, I don't have an answer, I don't have good advice, I only have my wishes and regrets. "You are a good mother. Maybe you just need to listen to yourself, make room for what you want. Someone once told me that you can't be honest with others if you don't go first with yourself, so... Sorry, I'm rambling a lot tonight"

"No do not worry. Thank you." she puts her hand over mine and it's like I'm back in time, from my own reality. As if I could now have the closeness I really wanted to have with my mother. "I understand what you mean. My children are my anchor, and I want to be theirs. Not to sink, to support each other..."

"But you won't be able to support them if you're stuck." she looks at me as if she knows exactly what I mean... and maybe she does. "Stuck in what makes you unhappy, because it only brings regret and that feeling will shape all the decisions you make. I learned in the worst way possible."

"How did you get yourself free?"

"Admitting to myself that I was trapped and unhappy, hurting myself, who was with me and whom I've pushed away. So I asked for a divorce and we parted ways with my ex-wife, but regret is still with me, all the time. I think that’s why I’m still looking for the moment when I’ll be able to fix things. I think that's what brought me here."

Since I met Hopper in that place, I have been feeling lost. As if I were in the ocean, trying every minute to cling to something that could make sense and I managed, sometimes, when El made me forget everything I regretted, everything I hid from her.

When I got here and the idea of never coming back came to me, even for a millisecond. I felt in the ocean again, lost, empty, waiting for the moment when I would sink. That moment seemed so close when I saw El in that store.

Now I try to do my best to, if I sink, not drag her with me. So I hold on to the few seconds of comfort I could find here, with the hug Karen gives me now. The anchor she wants to be for her children.

I close my eyes and hold on to her embrace, the memory of my real mother. My desire to return home and live close to mom and Nancy. I hold on to her embrace for as long as I can, but she pulls away from me shortly after, runs her hands over my face, as if trying to keep me in my memory. She straightens my shirt, like my mom used to do when I was a boy.

"You need to go, don't you?" I just nod in response and she kisses my forehead. "Go. Come back soon. I will be here for you."

**\------------**

I've lost track of how long I've been standing in the Wheeler parents' car of the past while I wait for Hopper to get out. We are going to the lab soon, we are going to bring yesterday-El back and, consequently, end Brenner. I don't quite understand why it's taking so long for Hopper to join me and I wonder if El is okay. After waking up from the void, I stayed with her for a while until I obeyed her request to leave her a alone with Hopper.

It is still raining a lot and the neighborhood police seem to have dispersed, so my only company in the garage is the noise of rain outside, but not for long. Someone aggressively opens the passenger door and gets in the car.

"What are you doing here?" I say to El as I watch Hopper get into another car that we stole on the way here. He is alone. "Get out of the car."

"No. Start driving. Follow Hopper." the tranquility in her voice is more frightening than anything I've had to deal with since I got here. "Please, just start the car, Mike."

"El-No! I will not take you with me." I try to open the passenger door, but she pushes me back into the driver's seat and starts arguing with me.

"Then get out of the fucking car and I'll drive! You can't stop me from anything now because you owe me that, Michael. You owe me because you lied to me and there is something much bigger now, much bigger and much more important than our selfishness, ok?!"

A horn sound catches my attention and I end up not being able to answer El. Hopper insists on the horn again and I start the car, still nervous. I don't want El to go to that place, I'm afraid of what might happen there.

"Mike," El calls my name a little calmer this time. "since I saw him on void, it's like he's been here all the time. Like he's inside me and all I can feel is this agony, this anger, this fear... and I wonder if that's how she feels now, because that's how I felt after I realized what he was doing to me in that place, years after my dad saved me. I'm so tired, Mike. I'm tired, I don't want to feel this agony anymore, I don't want to be controlled by what he does to me anymore. I don't want her to feel that way. I know you don't want me to go because it's probably a trap, but, Mike, I need to end this. Please."

I start the car when I see that Hopper has already done the same and flashes the headlight to hurry us, but something in my mind makes me stop. I can't conceive of the idea of taking El to the place where she was tortured for twelve years, taking her to that monster.

As always, El realized what I was feeling, because the next thing I know is that she makes me switch places and let her drive in my place. And so she does for a few minutes.

The streets are empty. I see many houses, stores and broken cars and I deduce that this is thanks to the attack of those monsters that probably left that laboratory. I wonder if Brenner caused all this. And what is it, after all.

El holds the steering wheel so tightly that I believe she can break it at any moment, but I know that, deep down, she is scared too. I won't leave her alone. I'm not going to let her go to him alone, I can't. El puts everything and everyone above her, I don't know what she would do if she were cornered by him, I don't know what she would sacrifice.

"I can not lose you" I say it out loud accidentally and she responds by squeezing my hand. The squeeze helps me a little while I float back into that dark ocean.

When we arrive, we don't see cars in the parking lot, just a light going on in some room in the building, maybe on the 10th floor. If I compare it with my reality and the information I have about what happened here in November 1983, the gate must be underground.

"I feel on the edge of a cliff." I speak more to myself than to her.

"I know, I feel that way too." El hugs me soon after and I return it. I keep thinking about the conversation we had in the room, when I finished everything between us, but she doesn't seem to have accepted. Part of me is relieved that she didn't immediately agree with me, but another part keeps reminding me that what I did was wrong, that I no longer deserve it. That when and if we return, she will think more calmly and will realize what I did. If I'm lucky, she won't hate me as much as I hate myself.

"Mike, I'm going to jump... off the cliff. Please don't hold my hand." I can't answer in time because she kisses me, but it's so fast that I could barely feel the warmth of her lips. "Find the other El and come over here. I will meet you here."

"Promise?" my nervousness is almost tangible, but I try to cling to her answer.

"I promise, Mike."


	44. Reunited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look who is baaaaaaaaack

Everything is so calm, like the day I went to the lab with Hopper to bring him back to 1985. But this time, it's not just him and me and I don't feel as calm as I did that day. Just everything around me is _too_ calm.

No monsters, dogs, snakes, or copies of ourselves. Nothing yet.

El and Hopper are now underground, deep in the building together, hoping to find Brenner there and, perhaps, keep him away as much as possible from yesterday-El, which is exactly who I am looking for on the fourth floor, where the rainbow room is. I hope to find yesterday-Kali here as well since she and El fled Chicago together days ago.

Even though until now I haven't even noticed a movement, a noise, or anything that would indicate a living being close to me, the most agonizing part is that I can feel myself in the middle of it all. Every strong and frightening beat of my heart, every step I take, the short breath, the drop of sweat that is now running down my face, the weapon I carry seeming to weigh a ton... The imminent feeling that I will fail with someone tonight.

The entire building is completely abandoned. The dirty walls and the floors of some floors were half-flooded as if a pipe had broken, or an infiltration had been installed between the walls of the place. It is nothing like the lab I worked in 2008, which received millions of dollars to keep standing, sheltering hundreds of people who might not be able to imagine all the bizarre things that have been practiced in this place. Or maybe everyone did.

 _I'm tired of this place_ , I conclude. And as for tired, I understand that I need to see this place collapse someday, be it here, in 1985, or there, in 2008. It doesn't matter. I think that if I'm tired of it, El is exhausted. I wonder if she hates this place as much as I do, but I remember right after that El is the best person I know and hate is a feeling that has no place in her life. Anger perhaps, but momentary. I don't hate it. And thinking about it reminds me that I broke up with her because she thought she would hate me after discovering everything, but I think that maybe her feelings didn't get the space it needed to grow up, so she doesn't hate me. Maybe we still have a chance together. I hope so.

It doesn't take long before I find the emergency door on the fourth floor and I walk through it without even knowing exactly where it will take me. There is a huge set of stairs, very different from the main ones, that I used to get here. With the help of a flashlight, I can see some blood marks on the steps and railing of the building that no longer sounds so abandoned anymore.

Despite the anxiety and fear that accompany me, I try to keep an eye out for any noise, any sign of the presence of something or someone, any sign of the presence of yesterday-El, or any sign that I need to go underground immediately to meet Hopper and El, my El.

At the end of the first set of stairs that took me to the fifth floor, I can see a beam of light, which indicates that this floor has energy, or maybe the whole building has, but almost everything is intentionally extinguished. I have a brief impression of seeing a shadow under the door, which makes me stop for a moment.

 _Breathe, Mike._ I think. _Don't be stupid now_.

I can't be a coward now. I take a few more deep breaths until I reach my hand over the emergency door handle, but I don't open it now. I close my eyes and think about counting to three, but the first thing that comes to my mind is the memory of yesterday-El hurt, asking me to wake up when my mind was still wandering between one reality and another. And I obeyed it. _Wake up, Mike._ I can hear her voice through the memory.

I turn off the flashlight I was wearing and fit it in the pocket of my sweatshirt, hold the gun tighter than usual in an attempt to keep a firm wrist when I need to use it, and only then do I open the access door to the fifth floor.

The first thing I notice is how this floor was prepared by them. The lights are on, the floor is clean, the smell of chlorine and alcohol exudes around me... Almost a hospital. It is so different that I wonder if this is really real or one of those visions that El and I had while we were between 2008 and the world inverted.

The door gave me access to a corridor so large that it seems to have no end. Everything is clear, the walls have a strange beige color, some white doors are in my view, and all of them are closed. I wonder whether or not I should open each of these doors.

_"When I was there, Kali stayed with me for a while. We stayed in a room with a rainbow on the door. I felt less sad when she was there with me. There were some toys on the floor, so we could play."_

The fourth door, the rainbow room. My mind brings back the day El told me, years ago, about Kali and the room where they stayed. It's the same indication she gave us at Wheeler's house. Somehow, that is the answer I needed.

I walk slowly down the hall, with the gun pointed forward, watching every white door that appears. None of them has the draw I'm looking for.

Almost at the end, I have the impression that I saw a shadow again and, I don't know if by instinct or madness, I decide to follow the direction of what I saw and turn to the other corridor on the right. At the end of it, there is a little girl at the most four years old. She wears an outfit that looks more like a uniform: a white blouse, black jumpsuit, light brown hair tied with a pink ribbon.

_"She always wore clothes like mine, a little black jumpsuit, a ribbon in her hair. That's the only good memory I have with her, Mike... from when we were so small and we could play in a room."_

I still remember that conversation with El, the black jumpsuit, the ribbon in his hair. The little girl doesn't move away from me when I take another two or three steps to get closer to her, but I still feel so far away. She keeps looking at me, curious until she smiles at me and I understand who I'm seeing. How could you not understand? I would recognize that smile anywhere, anytime, even though I never saw a picture of her at that age. I know that I saw El when I was a child and I didn't even understand what was happening in that place.

"Why am I seeing you?" I whisper although I understood, too, that this is not real, that she will not answer me. She just stops smiling and walks again and I follow her.

She is so small, fragile. I have to work hard to prevent my mind from making me imagine everything she went through in this place. Seeing her like this makes me wonder how different everything would have been if Terry Ives had run away from Hawkins when he discovered the pregnancy and that Brenner would never find out about her, would never put a finger on her.

_"There was a bad guy, very bad. He was tall, strange, disgusting... He was always angry, so he went to the room a few times a week with a shock gun and... One day he arrived in the room and took Kali. I haven't seen her for years, Mike."_

She stops in front of a hall door and looks at me as if she expected me to open the door for her. When I approach, I can see where she brought me. There is a rainbow on the door, and when I look back at it, there is no one else with me. It wasn't real, anyway, but it got me here.

Slowly turn the knob while holding the gun with the other hand. I hope it's El I'm looking for in that room, but I regret the thought as soon as I open the door and see a little of what's going on here.

_"Years later I found her in one of the rooms underground. We did not hug or talk much. She just told me that if someone tried to hurt me, that I should defend myself, it didn't matter how. That day I realized that she was important to me, that there was something that connected us. I only realized what it was years later when I understood what it meant to be someone's “sister”. So she is my sister, Mike. I want to have her around."_

In the small room, there is a window, a TV with no signal. There is a chair and a person on it. Suddenly, I feel like my body is convulsing and I can barely step forward without feeling like I'm falling off a cliff, but I insist on getting closer anyway.

I'm so scared to find El in that chair.

The TV lights help me to see the handcuffs and the hundreds of wires that go through the arms, legs, and bust of the person in the chair. When I approach, I can see who is trapped.

"Kali?" she doesn't answer my call, just keeps looking at the tv in front of her. I see that there are some devices next to her, recording a lot of data. She is being tested again, as they did when she was a child.

I reach out to pull all the wires and release it, but I feel something against my neck, like a wire, and let the gun fall from my hand, while someone pulls me away from the gun and Kali. By reflex, I put my hands on my neck in an attempt to remove the thread that tightens my throat so hard and makes me feel unbearable pain, mixed with the difficulty of breathing.

It was a trap, after all. Brenner, Kali and El are not alone here. Someone was waiting for us to get to the rainbow room.

I try as hard as I can to regain some control of my body, to turn against whoever is trying to kill me now, but it is difficult to even think straight, and increasingly difficult to breathe, too. The best I can do is think about punching the person in the face behind me, but I can barely see him. I try the first time and I can't, but the second time must have caused some damage because I feel three things at the same time: the pain in my neck from hanging, the pain in my wrist from hitting my attacker's face and the sound of the impact of my hand on what appeared to be his nose.

I ended up managing to destabilize him for a few seconds and I manage to push us close to the bedroom window when I manage to hit him again in the face and distract him enough to break the glass window. He can barely see when I pick up a piece of glass on the floor and I take the opportunity to hurt him in the leg. I hit him two or three times until he gives up and loosens his grip on my neck, giving me a chance - which I use very well - to escape.

I feel a little disoriented and I can't stop coughing as I try to fetch air after almost being killed by hanging, but I know the distraction will be for a short time, so I look for my gun on the floor. As soon as I find it, I get punched in the face and kicked in the stomach, which makes breathing even harder.

Somehow, I ended up falling to the ground and my attacker is on me. That's when I get to see him right the first time: he seems to be close to fifty years old, half obese, bald, and with an angry expression. One of the few things I noticed about him, at least so far, is the lack of reasoning. There is a shock gun attached to his belt. He could have used it against me earlier, and I probably would have passed out. But this accessory reminds me of something that Kali told me a few years ago.

_"There was a "shock guy" in the lab. He had a kind of gun that gave us shock and he loved to use it against me. I met him one day in Dearborn and I think he recognized me, but he was too much of a coward to loom at me and he threw himself in front of a truck soon after. Sometimes I wish I had pushed him or been the driver of that truck."_

_"It's bad to think that way, Kali."_

_"You wouldn't say that if you were in my place. Or if you knew what he already did with El. It's difficult to stay sane in that situation, Mike."_

I pull on his shirt so hard that I make him hit his head against one of the drawers that is very close to both of us, which makes him more disoriented than me. And I don't even know what moves me now, because the next thing I know is that I'm firing so many punches on his face that I don't even know anymore how far I may have gone, but I force myself to stop when I see my hand right is full of blood, but no more than his face.

I really feel like throwing up because of what I did. I almost vomit when I look in front of me and see Kali from the past stuck in the chair and, beside her, I also see El Child watching me. Even though I know she is not real, I feel ashamed for being the aggressor of this man on the floor. I look back at him and see that he is still alive, which makes me relieved and a thought occurs to me: how am I going to get Kali out of that chair? And where is yesterday-El, anyway?

"I will propose something to you, sir." I say to him as I keep one knee on his chest and remove the shock stick from his belt. "Take me to the other girl, then let go of Kali. And then, I will think if you will get a second chance or not."

"I just do what he asks me to do, boy." he tells me hoarsely. "I'm not the person you should hate."

"It doesn't matter now." I put the shock gun very close to his face without even knowing how it works. "Are you going to take me to the other girl or not?"

**\--------**

"She is here." he tells me as soon as we reach the end of the corridor. The door to this room is steel, completely different from the others, which makes me think that this is a lonely one. The son of a bitch locked the girl in solitary. "Open the door, boy."

He teases me again and it takes me a while to react. Before we got here, I had him turn off the machines that were monitoring Kali, loosen his handcuffs, and disconnect all the wires that held her in the chair. He has remained quiet until now.

"She's useless," he says that and I need to hold on a little so I don't do something stupid. "Very weak, can hardly act without the help of the bathtub and a lot of drugs that Brenner applies. It looks like the other one is bet-"

I can't let him speak and I react in a way I never imagined I could. I use the shock gun against him and nothing comes to my mind as I watch him shudder from the shock until he falls to the ground, unconscious.

I take a few steps back and drop the gun when I realize what I did and I even think I may have killed the guy, but I feel his pulse beat weakly when I press my fingers on his neck.

 _Breathe, Mike._ I think again. _Don't be a coward now._

I hide the gun I was wearing on my belt and take a deep breath before opening the steel door to the room where yesterday-El must be locked. I don't know exactly why, but I've never been more afraid to open a door than I am now.

I push the door slowly and avoid looking directly into the darkroom, I just stare at the floor for a while until I have enough courage to look ahead, and when I do, I feel so uncomfortable seeing it, intense agony, the pain almost physical.

I see El, fourteen years old, huddled in a corner of the darkroom that was locked. She has a bruise on her forehead, is wearing the same hospital clothes as Kali, is scared, and seems to be holding something with her left hand. It must be something she wants to protect at all costs.

"Hi." I swear I tried to sound as normal as possible, but I'm not sure I made it. Anyway, she looks directly at me and I feel worse than before. She is so small, so fragile... I feel devastated to see her that way.

She is not so different from my El. Time has not changed the big brown eyes that reflect so much strength and delicacy at the same time. Comparing the two reminds me of the various moments when I imagined what my children would be like with El.

Seeing this El now, this child, only fourteen years old, makes me wonder what it would be like if my El, from the future, could have children, if our baby was a girl. I always wanted my kids to look like El.  
Seeing this El, now, makes me think about the daughter I never had - and maybe I never will.

"Are you real?" she speaks for the first time since I arrived and I say yes. I think about asking the same thing to her because I can hardly believe what is happening, but she gets up, a little weak, and comes to me. I respond and walk over to her.

When she hugs me tight - which surprises me -, I bend down to hug her right. I can barely describe what I'm feeling right now, I think the only concept that forms in my mind is a relief. Relief for having found her still alive, for being able to take her home. I tighten my hug when I realize that she is crying and whispering something to me, which I try to pay more attention to:

"I am so sorry. I just wanted to find my dad, but I couldn't do it alone. I don't know how I found you."

"It's okay now, El." I say that looking her in the eyes and she seems to believe me so easily. "You know who I am?"

"Yes. Mike. Another Mike." I smile a little with that. "Where's the other... me? The oldest."

"From the future?!" She looks at me expectantly and I realize that she squeezes a little more what she is holding with her left hand. I think it's a piece of paper. "She's helping down there."

"Can I help?"

"No." I interrupt her and regret it afterward because I have the impression of being rude to her. "No... let's get Kali and leave the building. Let's wait for the other El and another person who wants to see you. But first, let's help Kali, okay?"

"He changed her, Mike." she has a sad expression when she says that to me. "Shock. The same as they did with Mom. She just wanted to help me."

"So let's help her, okay?" I try to look confident to her, but I don't even feel that way myself. I hug her again and realize that she is so weak that it might be better to carry her all the way. And that's what I do. "Don't look at what's out there, okay? Close your eyes. In a little while, we'll be away from here, El. I promise."

**\--------**

It is still raining when we leave the building. I had to let El walk beside me and carry Kali, who seems to be wandering between realities, half unconscious. I wonder if it was she who made us see all that in the laboratory in 2008, in the upside-down world, and here in 1985. If Brenner changed her - used her, it may have been to attract us here.

I place Kali in the back seat of the car while El opens the passenger door when we see a car approaching. I bag the gun, but it's not necessary. Before the car even stops, someone gets out of it and I see right after that it's Mike, the other Mike, from the past. He gets out of the car and calls El desperately and I watch the two meet, as they share a shy and quick kiss before a strong hug. I feel like an intruder seeing them together, but soon they are interrupted by Lucas, Dustin, and Max.

Joyce gets out of the car shortly after and gives up to greet El when he sees her surrounded by friends, so she comes towards me and hugs me tight. She is so small compared to me, it is funny.

"Thank you" she tells me and I am embarrassed to answer verbally, so I just smile at her. "Where are they?"

"In there." I talk about it for the first time and my anxiety increases. "I just left there. We agreed to wait for each other here, so..."

"Ah, they'll be back soon," she tells me with a smile tighter than I expected to see and walks away, going towards the others.

Since I don't see myself as part of that, of this reunion, of this conversation, I just turn around and stare at the damn door of the building, waiting for them to come back soon. Every second is like a bad day that is slow to end and I find myself thinking several times about going back there and bringing them back.

Maybe I should go.

I will.

But on the first step I take towards the building, the door opens, but only Hopper goes through it, which makes my heart stop for a millisecond, but I see El following him just a few steps back. Even so, the feeling that something _bad_ is hanging over us is still present.


	45. It’s nice to see you again, Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi yall! here we go again. sorry if there's any mistake

Everything is so chaotic, but not where I am. I mean, myself. Since I saw Mike going to the opposite side of the lab, farther and farther away from me, it's been more difficult to keep the anxiety away and it's inevitable to question the idea that Hopper and I still had at the Wheelers' house.

Letting Mike go in search of the other El was - and has been - difficult for me, but whatever is messing with our minds in this place, will use our weakness to destabilize us. Letting Mike come with me is like risking him ten times more than if he's alone. He knows I'm with Hopper, so it will be easier. He will be able to discern what is and is not real. I keep repeating this as I go down and down into this place, through the emergency stairs, towards the last floor.

I've never imagined that I would return to that place, that I would put my feet here, that I would see _him_ again. I wish he were dead, in all realities, no matter if he is my own blood, my father.

Thinking of Brenner makes me feel so angry that it's as if my body is on fire. He manages to bring out the worst in me, so much so that I am hardly surprised when we see one of those strange dogs at the bottom of a ladder and I don't even expect Hopper's action - he asked me not to try too hard until we get there - I just kill the animal as if it were just snapping my fingers.

"You don't have to-"

"It's dead." I interrupt Hopper because I don't want to hear him asking me, again, not to use my powers now, promising me that he can do the heavy lifting until we get there. "Let's go."

He doesn't answer or move, so I take the lead and continue down the stairs to the damn basement. I know Brenner is here and, for some reason, I can't see or feel anyone else besides him. I can't wait to end this.

I hear Hopper hurry up to accompany me and I remember that we should both be walking side by side, so I slow down a bit. We need to be cautious, he told me before we got in the cars to get here.

"Don't you want to think of something good while walking? Leave the hard job to me." he insists again and I choose not to answer him, but I try to do what he asked me to do.

The first memory that comes to me is of any day when I was at home, in bed and watching TV when Mike came into the room with two glasses of hot chocolate. It was snowing that day. Mike handed me one of the glasses and then kissed my cheek before he sat beside me on the bed and rested his free hand on my leg.

I hate to remember that because I think about him, alone, up there. I hate even more for remembering that he broke up with me. I hate that I don't even know how we are and we don't have the opportunity to resolve this right.

"He broke up with me." I say aloud even without knowing the reason and Hopper looks at me strangely. "I don't know if we're _really_ separated, it's just... It's so complicated. I don't want to think about who's waiting for me down there, but I end up thinking about Mike and I worry about him. I can't lose him."

"When I was in 2008, he talked to me sometimes. He didn't want to involve you in this because he was afraid of losing you... you know, he told me that he would rather you hate him forever if he found out everything than letting you be part of it and end up getting hurt or... dying. I tend to think like him."

I keep quiet, absorbing what I just heard, and he speaks again soon after:

"You know, I don't get along with Mike here - the teenager - but I enjoyed meeting Mike as an adult. We got on well. When we leave here and you meet, remember the good times together, think about the things you still want to do. But don't hate him, El."

"I don't hate Mike, but I feel betrayed by him, somehow," I say. "He wasn't around when I realized and verbalized that I would do anything to have a chance to see my dad again. It doesn't even make sense, considering he's dead, but still..." He doesn't answer for a while and I don't know if I prefer it that way. The conversation, although painful, distracted me from another subject, from someone else, as we walked together through the corridors of this laboratory.

And as we walk in silence, I run my fingers along the corridor wall covered in white and square tiles, scattered all over the place. I wonder how are all the people who worked here or were prisoners, like me.  
There was a girl, I think a nurse, that I liked a lot. Marie. She taught me some new words when we were not on camera or guard.

"Just one more floor and we'll be there," Hopper says before opening the emergency door, that he will give us access to a mezzanine and then, finally, to the floor where I used to live in my childhood. I wonder if I will find anyone stuck here. "Are you sure you want to continue? I can go-"

"We already discussed that, didn't we?" I worry that I was too harsh with him, who only nods and opens the door once and for all, but I realize how paralyzed he is when he reaches the mezzanine.

But when I get to him, it's not the mezzanine I see and it makes me nervous. It is just an empty corridor with dim lights and it seems to have no end. Part of this building is different from the one I lived in my reality. I don't know if I feel anger, fear, or frustration when I realize this.

"Do you see anything?" Hopper tells me in a voice so low that I can barely hear him.

"I do not see anything" I answer him.

"I thought I saw something, but it must be because of the light," he says before repositioning the gun and start walking in front of me. - Wait a minute and then come with me.

"Why?"

"Just wait. I'll see if the way is clear." Hopper says and I see him walking, slowly, but farther and farther away from me. I obey him, I understand why he wants so much and is on the front lines. He wants to find Brenner before me.

To be without someone by my side in this place is more frightening than I imagined. I remember Mike alone, upstairs, and I feel distressed again. Hell of a place.

I remember Hopper telling me to think about something I would like to do with Mike when this is all over and, inevitably, I think about our wedding, how much I want to see him at the altar and dance together afterward. He's going to have to let me choose the song, I think, and it's even comfortable to direct my thoughts towards that dream.

The lights in the corridor keep flashing non-stop as I split between daydreaming and paying attention to Hopper, who disappears more and more as he walks slowly. Coincidentally, I feel the presence of someone close to me and I ponder whether or not to look around. I choose to look.

And by my choice, accompanied by what I see, I need to repeat a thousand times that this is not real. Mike is up there, maybe six or seven floors above us. Whoever is beside me is not Mike and I look, even though I know it, for any sign to reaffirm what I think. There is no blue bracelet on this Mike, which is a good sign.

What I can't stop thinking about is why. Why is there another Mike here? Are there other realities that are also being interfered with by this inverted world? Or is it the reflection of the DNA prism that Liv and Owens theorized? It wouldn't make sense since Mike “saw me” in the lab before I dreamed about what was going on.

The fake-Mike appears closer and closer to me every time I avoid looking at him, but an idea comes to mind: maybe I can touch him, or try to touch him. I extend my hand and he does the same, almost as if he is imitating me, but I don't get to touch him because I hear the sound of shots being fired and I go towards the sound because I know that Hopper may be in danger at the end of that corridor.

"Dad?" I say out loud without thinking, but I don't have time to correct my speech because I feel someone pressing me against the wall with such force that I can hardly breathe. The tightness I feel against my body is so strong that I can't think clearly, even less when I see that it is the fake Mike who is doing this to me.

And even though I know it's not my Mike here, I can't contain the panic that is building in me as I hear other shots being fired not so far from me, even in this dim corridor.

Pressed between the wall and the fake-Mike, I see how he holds my hand tightly and, somehow, it is as if he is changing the structure of his hand over mine, as if he is changing the skin, until a thought occurs to me: it is “copying” me. And that thought makes me wake up and react immediately.

I use my power to push him away and I feel immediate relief at not feeling the weight of the fake-Mike anymore, or maybe I should find a better name for this thing. When I turn around, I see him trying to get up and a huge fracture has formed in the hallway wall. The light is still too low for me to see clearly, but I can see that the impact was stronger than I had planned.

The fake-Mike gets up quickly as if nothing has happened and before I can react and use my strength against him, I feel the strong weight of his fist against my face and something wet appears between my forehead and my hair, running down mine. face right after.

He takes advantage of my instability and pushes me against the floor, getting under me soon after, and I watch - astonished - as a few drops of my blood float up to his face. I think about using my power to push him away or something more aggressive, but I see again what he's doing: copying me. Maybe using my power against him will end up allowing him to act as hard as I do.

I begin to see how his body changes undermine and, little by little, the features that I know so well - because they are identical to Mike's - end up becoming a copy of me, exactly as I am now, the same clothes, the same hairstyle, the same bruise on the face.  
Before I can see my face completely reflected in this bizarre creature, I hear another gunshot noise if I mix the terrible scene of the false head-I explode still under me and I run to throw the creature's body away.

Hopper appears next to me and I grab his hand in order to get up faster, but we do not fail to watch in fright as the body of the creature crumbles to the ground and ends up becoming one of those monsters we saw in the market hours before. I don't wait to see what will happen and, with a simple gesture, I repeat my attitude from the market here, breaking the grotesque creature in half.

"El, come on!" I feel Hopper pull me and I just follow his steps, awkwardly, until we arrive in a more illuminated space, where I can understand where I am.

The former corridor was the division between the main area and the place where I lived for years. A new corridor with white tiles and gray doors. Deep down, I see the person I feared meeting for years and I have no idea what makes me walk up to him.

I hear Hopper say something to me, but I just hold him - using my mind - exactly where he is so that he doesn't follow me or stop me from doing what I know I need to do.

"Eleven." His voice is still frighteningly cold and stable as if nothing could affect him. "It's so good to see you again."

I don't answer him, the only thing I can register is the vision I have of him: much older than I remember, with one side of his face, a little disfigured, the black suit and tie he always wore, as he still is incredibly tall, making me look smaller and smaller in front of his presence, as he always did.

I don't even understand why I can't react to it. I know why I came here, why I took Hopper away from me, why I walked to the man who destroyed all my childhood. I just can't seem to react, it's like he could paralyze me just by being here.

Brenner points to something behind me and I follow with my gaze, only to see that the force I used against Hopper was so great that he probably passed out. I'm alone, I thought. I'm alone with him.

"Hey, hey... you don't have to be nervous. I waited for you for a long time, Eleven." the next thing I know is that he is holding my face with his cold, alcohol-smelling hands. "All of this, absolutely all of this happened so that I could find you. It has been several times, millions. In all existing realities, you always come back to me."

"What?" for the first time I say something.

"The Eleven from 1983 opened a door, but I got lost there, on the other side. That place is a huge corridor and I found several other doors still closed, but I could see, I could see you from the other side of the door. I just didn't have you to help me open them. I needed my key."

"I'm not yours..." In a rush, I try to get his hands off my face, but it's useless. He has the same power over me, now and before.

"You are, much more than the other one up there." yesterday-El. Maybe Mike found her. "A pity that she is no longer as before. That's what happens when you leave, you become mediocre, ordinary. Only I can make you special, Eleven. And we can both do a lot together, we can open all those doors together."

"How did you find me?" part of me desperately wants to understand how he discovered me, how I became his “key”.

"A door was open, one that _you_ opened without knowing it when you were a child before the savior of the country appeared. The breach has always been there, but no one noticed until Owens..."

You opened it yourself without knowing it. I try to dig through all my memories in an attempt to convince myself that he is lying to me, but I can't. I don't get the exact memory of the moment, but it was so many days in that tank, walking around the void, trusting in his promise that I was helping a lot of people. I was a child, I didn't know how to speak properly, I didn't even understand that what he did to me was torture.

"I saw, while I was there, what you had done without anyone noticing. I saw when you grew up, when the policeman took you, when he left you..." he smiles when he mentions my father's death. "When you were sad, so sad, that I wanted to join him, but there was still someone holding you. It is the boy who is up there now, leading to another Eleven. I saw your whole life because your time is thousands of times ahead of mine, which made me realize that you are my key, the policeman is your key and the boy up there is the path that would bring you to me, because he found your key and would do anything to give you what is yours."

Then that's it. I should fall here, anyway. I should've returned to him, even without knowing it, something or someone would bring me here unintentionally. _I came home_ , I think. The house that, like a body, watched me, welcomed me, and swallowed me slowly, for years and years... but failed to digest in time. Maybe my return is to finish what was interrupted in 2008. Maybe I came back here to be digested.

_I'm home_ , I think, as I face Brenner's cold gaze on me and feel something stuck inside my throat, something that keeps me from speaking, from breathing properly. Something that spreads and prevents me from moving, from leaving here, from acting.

"All of that, Eleven," Brenner says as he pulls the strands of hair out of my face and I just watch him. "This is all ours if you stay. All these places that no one can ever access. There are thousands of doors to be opened, and you can open each one. I can see what each one holds for you. Look around, my daughter. See what you can have with me."

I obey his request and suddenly, I am no longer in the laboratory with him. I am in a comfortable house, with white painted walls, a TV on a wall full of photographs, in a large room with a gray carpet full of toys.

I hear a noise behind me and I turn around immediately just to see and understand, part of what Brenner is doing to me. The noise I heard is of a dark-haired baby, laughing happily on his father's lap, who looks tired from being up at dawn, but happy to be with his baby.

_See what you can have with me_ , I remember Brenner's words again. That is why what I see is Mike and a baby in a comfortable couch. That's what I wanted. What I want. I don't understand why he is making me see this and I am about to question him, but I hear a voice close to me:

"Has he woken up yet?" a woman says and I realize right away who said that, but I prefer to refuse to believe. This woman is not my mother, she cannot be. "Do you want me to carry him?"

"It is alright." Mike smiling before tickling the baby again. "El _really_ needs to sleep and you helped us all day..."

"He's an angel, Mike." she says before approaching the baby and kissing him on the cheek. "Have fun. Hopper arrives in the city tomorrow, so... Get ready to see your little boy being spoiled."

"Oh gosh!" Mike says while pretending to be nervous about the arrival of this Hopper. "Good night, Terry."

"Good night, Mike."

And I watch as they disappear around me like smoke, so clear at first until the faintest wind blows them away, blows my dream away, but brings back my nightmare.

I'm not in the comfortable house anymore, I'm in Hawkins, 1985 or 1983. I don't know what year, but I see the bed I used to sleep in when I was a child, the drawing I did when I still thought Brenner had the least amount of decency to being considered a father, the stuffed lion that was, for twelve years, the only toy I had.

"What do you want from me?" I whisper knowing he is listening.

"Let us be together." he sits down on the bed that was mine and takes the drawing that was stuck on the wall: me and him. Together. "My Eleven doesn't have the powers anymore, so she came to me, so I could make her special again, so she could bring that cop back. Even Eight came with her. It was an exchange, but the other Mike brought him back, which made me no longer important to her."

"Why me, then? You are not important to me." I face him for the first time as I begin to feel angry at him. All the anger that I've kept my whole life. "I hate you."

"I know." and even knowing what I feel, he seems indifferent. "She doesn't need me and I don't need her. The other Eleven is 14 years old and will live a normal life, without powers, with her friends, with the cop you left out... But you don't have a normal life, do you? What we saw a few minutes ago is the normal life you want to have. It exists, in another place, another year, other people, but it belongs to another Eleven, or Jane.

"Good for her." I still answer without understanding what his intention is.

"That is a door you can open. It belongs to someone else, but... Everything is an exchange, isn't it?" he smiles right after speaking and I feel disgusted. Disgusted by his offer, his arrogance, his smile. I feel angry, mainly. Anger that he knew me so well and knew how to hurt me, even though he wasn't the same Brenner who tortured me.

"I hate you." I repeat.

"Yeah, I know. Look, I spent a long time in that horrible place, so much time that a creature, like a shadow, got mixed up in my body. And it's so quiet, but I still feel it everywhere. It is quiet, but not at peace. I made an exchange, one I didn't want: allow him to come back, let the gate open again - and it opened, as you can see. All these creatures hanging around Hawkins came from there. And this shadow-shaped monster is in me, waiting, but giving me the power I never would have, but you have, since you were born. And like a sucker, that monster took what was special in Eight, and Eleven, but I don't think it's possible to take it away from you."

I try to follow everything he is saying to me, but it is confusing, especially the idea of having a monster inside him, considering that he himself is one. However, despite the confusion, I remain silent to hear it.

"Come with me, bring your Mike if you want, keep him safe in 2008. Close the gate from the inside, destroy the irrational monsters out there. And then, help me get this thing out of me. We can go to that comfortable house together, get that other Jane out of there and you'll have a Mike, a Terry, a baby. We can reveal to the world what we discover an-"

I can't hear his voice anymore, so I throw it against the wall so hard that part of it is taken up by cracks soon after. The room I used to stay in during my childhood also collapsed quickly, and only he and I remain down the hall from Hawkins' lab.

I reach out to him and, for the first time in my life, I'm grateful that I don't need to touch him to hurt him. I feel something run from my nose and down to my lip, but I don't care. I know it's blood and that it symbolizes that shit of power that he somehow made me have. And I will use it against him now.

I use almost all my strength while I watch him choke and hold his own neck while he feels the tightness that I cause in his throat, I watch the continuous search for air, his face becoming redder and redder... because of the force that I know I am using it, he will die in less than a minute. I can speed it up if I want, but something stops me like I'm trying to walk and someone is pulling me back. And even so close to death, he doesn't shut up, which irritates me even more.

"If you kill me," Brenner speaks with great difficulty while choking. "what will be the difference between us?"

"Shut up!" I scream back, which makes the window panes in some rooms in the hall burst, but I don't care. "I'm not like you."

"You will be if you kill me!" he says and I keep fighting myself because, deep down, I know he is right. I will have to deal with his death until the end of my life, I will be disturbed by it, at the same time that part of me claims that he has already caused me enough damage, that they will never disappear from me. "Kill me, Eleven. Kill me and let the monster live here. None of us will win. Kill me"

I hear a gunshot, something hit Brenner in the shoulder and bloodstain the wall. He coughs and barely has the breath to scream at the pain of the gunshot. I look behind me and see Hopper approaching, gun in hand, ready to kill Brenner, as his other did in my reality.

_Kill me and let the monster live here._

Remembering that makes me take the gun he was using from Hopper, which makes him look scared.

_None of us will win._

"Don't!" I tell him a little desperate, hoping he will listen to me. "Please, not now."

"What did he do to you?" Hopper says while holding my shoulders and looks directly at me, scared. I repeat the same thing a thousand times. 

“No, I have a plan. Not now". 

"What did he tell you?"

"Trust me," I plead with all my heart. "trust me, Dad"

**\-----------**

Hopper tied Brenner's arms and legs, which is on the verge of unconsciousness, and placed him in a solitary very similar to the one that held me when I was a child. Hopper leaves him there and looks at me before closing the door:

"Are you sure?" he asks me.

"Yes." I answer. I convinced him of my plan and he seemed pleased to hear it. I know that this monster that looks like a shadow is what the boys call Mind Flayer. I know that part of it tormented yesterday-Will, and now torments Brenner, who has found a way to benefit from it, taking the powers that belonged to yesterday-Kali and El.

I will pick up Mike at the meeting point and we will be back here when we take Brenner to the upside-down world. I will close the gate from the inside, as he told me I should do. Mike and I will find the door open for 2008 and return home, but we will leave Brenner locked in the upside-down. I will close the two gates and he will die there, in the place that he desired so much. Fuck him.

Before Hopper closes the door, Brenner looks at me one last time and says to me, even without making a sound, but clear enough for me to understand:

"I'm waiting for you here."


	46. Goodbye

We get to leave Hawkins National Laboratory so fast. I hear Hopper opening the door and notice that it's raining outside, it is raining a lot. Maybe too much.

I keep following Hopper until something paralyzes me: a younger version of me runs up to him and the duo hugs each other under the covered area as the rain falls behind them.

It is a strange feeling to see me like this, still a teenager, but with the clothes I wore when I was locked in a jail, hugging Hopper, who, despite being so tall, so strong, so tough, seems so vulnerable while embracing the other version of me. It's a strange feeling, one I can't describe it. It is something that wanders between the memories of the day he rescued me and the realization that this place that I am now, with my father, with Mike, Joyce, Lucas, Max, Dustin... this place does not belong to me. It's not mine. 

And as if feeling the same as me, Mike shows up in front of me saying a lot of things that I can't really understand, but I hug him anyway. _He's fine_ , I think as he tightens his grip on me. He's fine, he did it.

I feel Mike pull away from me just a little more and try to look directly at my eyes while trying to wipe my face with his shirt sleeve, but I force him to hug me back, and he accepts, as he always has, as if he understood that I need him to ward off bad thoughts. And he does.

Over my fiance's shoulder, I continue to watch the meeting of father and daughter gradually transform into the meeting of a large family. Joyce joins them first, and I imagine the family I wish I had. A mother, especially. Or the family I wanted to build.

In this reality, there's only one El and one Hopper, those who are hugging and crying while saying something to each other. I don't exist here, and neither does Mike.

 _"Everything is an exchange, isn't it?"_ Brenner's voice invades my mind and I end up pushing Mike away from me, which makes him look at me confused. I don't hear him very well, but I'm almost sure he's asking me if I'm okay.

"I am fine." I say to reassure him, but I think I don't convince him very well. He touches somewhere near my forehead and I feel a twinge, that's when I understand why he is so worried. "It's just a bruise, but I'm fine. How are you?"

"Fine, I guess." there is something odd in his eyes, but I don't have much time to question him because he decides to tell me. "I found two more people up there. Kali... she is in the car, they will take her to the hospital. And a guy... but he doesn't matter, okay? Kali will be fine, the other El too."

Consequently, my gaze goes directly to yesterday-El and Hopper together. It surprises me that the whole world seems to have stopped for them, now accompanied by all their friends. Mike follows my gaze and returns to me shortly after, in silence. I wonder if he knows what I'm feeling right now, this confusion aligned with the feeling of not belonging. I wonder if that was exactly what he felt when he got here.

I accept his embrace again, but I still look at the group that is a few feet away from me. And I notice that I am not the only one watching someone here.

As if I were looking in a mirror, I see the yesterday-El watching me over her father's shoulder. She gives me a half-smile and whispers an "I'm sorry" followed by a "thank you". I don't know why she apologizes or thanks me. And soon after, their hug breaks, and everyone seems to have noticed the presence of the two completely different worlds.

Yesterday-Mike is the first to come to me. He doesn't have to say anything verbally, I know exactly what he wants to say. I hug him and then Max, Lucas and Dustin approach me to do the same.

It's not just a hug of thanks. It's a goodbye, too.

 _"Everything is an exchange, isn't it?"_ His voice returns, reminding me of what awaits me inside this building, but I try to ignore it at all costs. I don't want to be chased by him right now.

"Thank you, thank you..." yesterday-Mike whispers to me and I just tighten our group hug, allowing their relief to comfort me and overcome the agony of my meeting with Brenner.

I see Hopper and Mike hugging each other, and my dad seems to be saying something to him, but I can't hear it, but it's not something that should interest me either.

"Hi." I hear someone calling me softly and Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Max walk away from me slowly, making room for those who just arrived. I knew, in any case, that I could not fail to meet my young version.

Seeing her, so close, so small, with a bruise on her face and the clothes I used to wear when I lived in the lab, make me freeze where I am. Externally, I do not react, but my mind feels like boiling. I can't avoid all the memories of my childhood.

"I'm so sorry," she says and I realize that I didn't answer when she said hi. And again I don't understand the apology. "I just wanted to get my powers back and look for him."

At this point, Hopper and Joyce are already closer to me while Mike is still a little far away. He's keeping an eye on the car and I think I see someone inside.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want him to find you. I didn't understand at first, that the dreams about you were real." she tells me again and I think of all the times that I “dreamed” about myself, with my father lost in a place I now know to be upside-down.

"It wasn't your fault." I manage to answer, but it bothers me that I just can't even look directly at her for a long time. "I'm glad I helped."

She hugs me awkwardly, and I wonder if the strangeness I feel is the same feeling she carries. It's a quick hug, but with enough time for her to whisper something to me:

"I hope I'll be like you." as much as I find her desire weird, I think that maybe she saw only some good moments of my life.

"I hope you'll be better than me." I answer and she smiles weakly at me before changing her expression quickly when she seems to remember something important.

She takes my right hand and hands me a folded paper, closing my hand around the small gift. That's when I understand that it is something special. "Read it when you're sad or missing him. It will help you." I just nod, a little curious to know what's in that piece of paper.

El turns away from me and returns to yesterday-Mike's embrace. Their height difference between them is crazy and I wonder if he will grow any further. Beside me, I saw Hopper. He looks at my hand holding the paper yesterday-El gave me, and I wonder if he knows what is written there.

"GoodBye?" I say even though I know that part of me doesn't want to leave him.

"Not yet. I'm going with you and Mike." he says.

"No, stay!" my tone is exasperated. "You need to stay with her! I have a plan, remember? I can do it."

"It's too risky!" it is funny, even, how he tries to convince me of something that I am _absolutely_ sure of. "At least let me go with you an-"

"Kali needs to be taken to the hospital." tomorrow-Mike, my Mike, appears on our side and I realize that he doesn't like the idea of letting Hopper come with us. "And they need to go home too, so... Take them home, Hop."

He looks at Mike and me, thinking about what to do. It is obvious to me that he needs to stay with his daughter, take her somewhere safe. Whatever happens when Mike and I get in there - and all the way to 2008 - the certainty we have is that Hopper cannot take any risks again.

I watch the exchange of looks between Mike and Hopper before my dad starts staring at the floor, letting a long sigh flow. Now, I can see that there are some white strands in his hair and I remember when I noticed my father's first real white hair. Fortunately, he talks to me again:

"Keep being who you are, okay? I am proud of who you have become. I will do my best to be to her what he was to you, I promise." Hopper tells me with his teary eyes, as I can see myself in them. "I'm so lucky to be your father."

I hug him one last time, realizing that this is the _last_ and closest I've had to with my real dad in the last few years. _I'm also so lucky to be your daughter_ , I think, but I can't say it out loud.

"Goodbye, Kid." he says in a bittersweet tone as soon as he breaks our hug. We don't have time, they need to take Kali to the hospital. Mike and I need to go back and lock Brenner in the upside-down world, close the gates and go home.

I see the group walking away from me, speeding up because of the rain. Joyce going to the car where Kali is while Hopper is with the kids. They will be safe, at least, because this time they are together.

Hopper looks at me through the car window before starting the engine and I turn around before I get to see him leaving. The paper yesterday-El gave me is still in my hand and, for a second, I think about asking Mike to keep it so I don't lose it, but I give up and save it inside my pants pocket.

As soon as we enter the building and I don't see anyone else I met here, a feeling of loss wraps me. It was just a few hours with him and I know that _that_ Hopper is not my father. I don't know why I feel like I've lost so much.

Although I feel like looking back in an attempt to see them one last time, I know it wouldn't do me any good. _I need to go back to my life_ , I think, and walk forward again while I hug myself and look at the floor.

"El?" Mike's voice manages to wake me up a bit, as well as see his hand extended to me. I _need to get back to my life_ , I think, again. That's why I hold his hand.

**\---------**

_I'm waiting for you here._

Brenner's voice gets louder and clearer as my mind repeats the last thing he said to me. _I'm waiting for you here_. At least Mike is with me and hasn't let go of my hand since we entered the building. We are close to where Hopper and I left Brenner, so each floor we get down has made me more nervous and insecure. The only thing I can be sure of is that Mike needs to go home, regardless of what happens.

And thinking about it reminds me of something we haven't discussed yet, and maybe this is not the best time, but I need him to know for me before we get into that place.

"Mike?" I call him and he stops walking immediately and looks at me. His gaze is tired and I notice some traces of blood on his shirt, but I choose to ignore it. "About everything that happened... Hopper, the plan... I forgive you. Really."

He keeps looking at me like I have two heads or something, which makes me believe that he can't understand why I forgave him, as if that were impossible. I would love to have all the time in the world to explain to him, but I know I don't, so I focus on saying just what I need him to know:

"I forgave you from the beginning when you explained everything that happened. I was angry, upset - I think I still am - but I understand you. And I forgive you. Just... what's the point of having _me_ forgiving _you_ if you don't do the same for yourself? I know you asked me to find a space in my life that would still fit you, but I don't even have to look. You know exactly what I want. You always knew."

Mike still doesn't answer me, but I know that the strangeness of my forgiveness is gone. He understands what I want, he always understood and we always wanted the same thing. Together.

"I forgive you and I love you, very much. All I need now is for you to forgive yourself and find out what space you want to occupy in my life, even if I don't deserve you sometimes." I say before hugging him and kissing his lips, which did not answer me at first, but his gaze already made clear what he is feeling. He's just surprised. I hope we'll have the opportunity to resolve this matter at home.

As we walked together, I tried to find some sign to understand him better what he is feeling and thinking, but I didn't find much. At the same time, I know that we cannot afford to walk together without worries, because I don't know what can come up suddenly and hurt us, but I still want to hear his voice. At least that.

An idea suddenly comes to me and I decide to go with it:

"What do you want to do when you get back?" I ask Mike in an attempt to break this thunderous silence between us and I feel even a little more comfortable when he looks at me sideways and smiles shyly before answering me.

"Sleep." it feels good, hearing the timbre of his voice as if his answer is obvious. I hold on to that feeling. "I just want to get away from this mess. I want to go home, to the classroom, to go for a walk with Anna and Karen... drink wine with you on the balcony and watch the city"

"Does not make sense. Do you want to get away from this mess and have wine with me... Somehow, I am the one who creates this mess, even without wanting to-"

"No, it's not you. It's not your fault. I don't know what he said to you and I don't want to know because I'm sure everything he said was a fucking lie." he takes a deep breath before continuing to speak. "El... we don't know what's going to happen, I have no idea myself. But what he said, whatever it is, doesn't matter, because it's a lie. You believe me, don't you?"

"I do. It doesn't matter and I know what will happen, you will be back."

" _We_ are going back, El." He looks at me strangely and I immediately regret my failed act.

"Yes! We'll. I'm sorry. We will. You will go back to teaching and you will be thrilled because all your students will love physics... and we will have wine on the balcony." he smiles before walking away from me, but I call him back and he turns to me before opening the door that will take us to Brenner, but I know I need to tell him what I feel before I find my nightmare one more time. "I love you."

"Wine on the balcony. Promise?" He turns to the door again and I wonder if he won't say he loves me too, however, as quickly as the thought came, it was gone when Mike returned to me. "I was going to say it when we got back, but I love you too. I will say it again when we are on the other side."

I smile weakly at his comment that. As simple as it sounds, it's all I needed to hear. And I want, more than anything, to hear it again when we get home.


End file.
